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LOVE 

AMONG THE 


RUINS 


BY 


WARWICK DEEPING 

AUTHOR OF « UTHER AND IGRAINE ” 


Grim work, sirs ; what would you ! 
War is the devil. 





NEW YORK 

THE OUTLOOK COMPANY 

1904 



LIHRaKV congress 


Two Copiab Receivecf 


MAR 25 1904 


1 Cupyrig-hi Entry 
'^jAr. f- 

CLASS A- XXc. No. 


'L 5 

cory 3 




Copyright, 1904, by 

THE OUTLOOK COMPANY. 


ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 


Published March, 1904. 


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TO 

MY MOTHER AND 


FATHER 


WITH ALL LOVE AND GRATITUDE 








PART I 


I 


The branches of the forest invoked the sky with the 
supplications of their thousand hands. Black, tumultuous, 
terrible, the wilds billowed under the moon, stifled with 
the night, silent as a windless sea. Winter, like a pale 
Semiramis of gigantic mould, stood with her coronet touch- 
ing the steely sky. A mighty company of stars stared 
frost-bright from the heavens. 

A pillar of fire shone red amid the chaos of the woods. 
Like a great torch, a blazing tower hurled spears of light 
into the gloom. Shadows, vast and fantastic, struggled 
like Titans striving with Destiny in the silence of the 
night. Their substanceless limbs leapt and writhed 
through the gnarled alleys of the forest. Overhead, the 
moon looked down with thin and silver lethargy on the 
havoc kindled by the hand of man. 

In a glade, all golden with the breath of the fire, 
blackened battlements waved a pennon of vermilion flame 
above the woods. Smoke, in eddying and gilded clouds, 
rolled heavenwards to be silvered into snow by the light 
of the moon. The grass of the glade shone a dusky, 
yet brilliant green; the tower’s windows were red as 
rubies on a pall of sables. About its base, cottages were 
burning like faggots piled about a martyr’s loins. 

Tragedy had touched the place with her ruddy hand. 
There had been savage deeds done in the silence of the 
woods. Hirelings, a rough pack of mercenaries in the 
service of the Lord Flavian of Gambrevault, had stolen 
upon the tower of Rual of Cambremont, slain him before 
his own gate, and put his sons to the sword. A feud had 

3 


4 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


inspired the event, a rotten shred of enmity v^oven on 
Stephen’s Eve in a tavern scuffle. The burning tower 
with its cracking walls bore witness to the extravagant 
malice of a rugged age. 

Death, that flinty summoner, salves but the dead, yet 
wounds the living. It is sport with him to pile woe 
upon the shoulders of the weak, to crown with thorns the 
brows of those who mourn. Double-handed are his bless- 
ings — a balm for those who sleep, an iron scourge for the 
living. The quick bow down before his feet ; only the dead 
fear him no more in the marble philosophy of silence. 

On a patch of grass within the golden whirl of the 
lire lay the body of Rual of Cambremont, stiff and still. 
His face was turned to the heavens ; his white beard 
tinctured with the dye of death. Beside him knelt a 
girl whose unloosed hair trailed on his body, dark and 
disastrous as a sable cloud. The girl’s eyes were tear- 
less, dry and dim. Her hands were at her throat, clenched 
in an ecstasy of despair. Her head was bowed down 
below her stooping shoulders, and she knelt like Thea over 
Saturn’s shame. 

Behind her in the shadow, his face grey in the un- 
certain gloom, an old man watched the scene with a 
wordless awe. He was a servant, thin and meagre, 
bowed under Time’s burden, a dried wisp of manhood, 
living symbol of decay. There was something of the 
dog about his look, a dumb loyalty that grieved and gave 
no sound. Beneath the burning tower in the heat of the 
flames, these twain seemed to mimic the stillness of the 
dead. 

There was other life in the glade none the less, a red 
relic evidencing the handiwork of the sword. A streak 
of shadow that had lain motionless in the yellow glare of 
the fire, stirred in the rank grass with a snuffling groan. I 
There was a curt hint in the sound that brought Jaspar 
the harper round upon his heel. He moved two steps, 
went down on his knees in the ooze, turned the man’s 


LOVE AMONG THE EC/INS 


5 


head towards the tower, and peered into his face. It 
was gashed from chin to brow, a grim mask of war, con- 
torted the more by the uncertain palpitations of the 
flames. 

Jaspar had a flask buckled at his girdle. He thrust 
his knee under the man’s head, trickled wine between 
his lips, and waited. The limp hands began to twitch ; 
the man jerked, drew a wet, stertorous breath, stared for a 
moment with flickering lids at the face above him. Jaspar 
craned down, put his mouth to the man’s ear, and spoke 
to him. 

The fellow’s lips quivered ; he stirred a little, strove 
to lift his head, mumbled thickly like a man with a palsied 
tongue. Jaspar put his ear to the bruised mouth and 
listened. He won words out of the grave, for his rough 
face hardened, his brows were knotted over the dying 
man’s stumbling syllables. The harper shouted in his 
ear, and again waited. 

‘‘ Gam — Gambrevault, Flavian’s men, dead, all dead,” 
ran the death utterance. “Ave Maria, my lips burn — St. 
Eulalie — St. Jude, defend me ” 

A cough snapped the halting appeal. The man stiffened 
suddenly in Jaspar’s arms, and thrust out his feet with 
a strong spasm. His hands clawed the grass ; his jaw 
fell, leaving his mouth agape, a black circle of death. 
There was a last rattling stridor. Then the head fell 
back over Jaspar’s knee with the neck extended, the eyes 
wide with a visionless stare. 

A shadow fell athwart the dead man and the living, 
a shadow edged with the golden web of the fire. Looking 
up, Jaspar the harper saw the girl standing above him, 
staring down upon the dead man’s body. The red tower 
framed her figure with flame, making an ebon cloud of 
her hair, her body a pillar of sombre stone. Her face 
was grey, pinched, and expressionless. Youth seemed 
frozen for the moment into bleak and premature age. 

She bowed down suddenly, her hair falling forward like 


6 


ZOFE AMONG THE RUINS 


a cataract, her eyes large with a tearless hunger. Point- 
ing to the man on Jaspar’s knee, she looked into the 
harper’s face, and spoke to him. 

‘‘ Quick, the truth. I fear it no longer.” 

Her voice was toneless and hoarse as an untuned 
string. She beat her hands together, and then stood with 
her fists pressed over her heart. 

‘‘ Quick, the truth.” 

The old man turned the body gently to the grass, and 
still knelt at the woman’s feet. 

‘‘ It is Jean,” he said, with great quietness, “ Jean the 
swineherd. He is dead. God rest his soul ! ” 

She bent forward again with arm extended, her voice 
deep and hoarse in her throat. 

“ Tell me, who is it that has slain my father ? ” 

‘‘ They of Gambrevault.” 

« Ah ! ” 

Her eyes gleamed behind her hair as it fell dishevelled 
over her face. 

“ And the rest — Bertrand, my brothers ? ” 

Her voice appealed him with a gradual fear. Jaspar 
the harper bowed his face, and pointed to the tower. The 
girl straightened, and stood quivering like a loosened bow. 

“ God ! In there ! And Roland ? ” 

Again the harper’s hand went up with the slow inevi- 
tableness of destiny. The flames, as beneath the incan- 
tations of a sibyl, leapt higher, roarinjg hungrily towards 
the heavens. The girl swayed away some paces, her 
lips moving silently, her hair fanned by the draught, blow- 
ing about her like a veil. She turned to the tower, thrust 
up her hands to it with a strong gesture of anguish and 
despair. 

A long while she stood in silence as in a kind of torpor, 
gazing at this red pyre of the Past, where memories leapt 
heavenwards in a golden haze of smoke. The roar of the 
fire was as the voice of Fate. She heard it dim and dis- 
tant like the far thunder of a sea. Beyond, around, above. 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


7 


the gaunt trees clawed at the stars with their leafless talons. 
Night and the shadow of it were very apparent to the girPs 
soul. 

Jaspar the harper stood and watched her with a dumb 
and distant awe. Her rigid anguish cowed him into 
impotent silence. The woman’s soul seemed to soar far 
above comfort, following the saffron smoke into the silver 
aether of the infinite. The man stood apart, holding aloof 
with the instinct of a dog, from a sorrow that he could not 
chasten. He was one of those dull yet happy souls, who 
carry eloquence in their eyes, whose tongues are clumsy, 
but whose hearts are warm. He stood aloof therefore 
from Yeoland, dead Rual’s daughter, pulling his ragged 
beard, and calling in prayer to the Virgin and the 
saints. 

Presently the girl turned very slowly, as one whose blood 
runs chill and heavy. Her eyes were still dry and crystal 
bright, her face like granite, or a mask of ice. The man 
Jaspar hid his glances from her, and stared at the sod. He 
was fearful in measure of gaping blankly upon so great a 
grief. 

‘‘ Jaspar,” she said, and her voice was clear now as the 
keen sweep of a sword. 

He crooked the knee to her, stood shading his eyes with 
his wrinkled hand. 

“We alone are left,” she said. 

“ God’s will, madame, God’s will ; He giveth, and taketh 
away. I, even I, am your servant.” 

Her eyes lightened an instant as though red wrath 
streamed strongly from her heart. Her mouth quivered. 
She chilled the mood, however, and stood motionless, 
save for her hands twining and twisting in her hair. 

“ Does Heaven mock me ? ” she asked him, with a level 
bitterness. 

“ How so, madame ? ” he answered her ; “ who would 
mock thee at such an hour ? ” 

“Who indeed?” 


8 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


‘‘ Not even Death. I pray you be comforted. There is 
a balm in years.” 

They stood silent again in the streaming heat and 
radiance of the fire. A sudden wind had risen. They 
heard it crying far away in the infinite vastness of the 
woods. It grew, rushed near, waxed with a gradual 
clamour till the bare wilds seemed to breathe one great 
gathering roar. The flames flew slanting from the 
blackened battlements. The trees clutched and swayed, 
making moan under the calm light of the moon. 

The sound thrilled the girl. Her lips trembled, her form 
dilated. 

“ Listen,” she said, thrusting up her hands into the 
night, ‘‘the cry of the forest, the voice of the winter 
wind. What say they but ‘ vengeance — vengeance — 
vengeance ’ ? ” 


n 


h 

Dawn came vaguely in a veil of mist. A heavy dew lay 
scintillant upon the grass ; a great silence covered the 
woods. The trees stood grim and gigantic with dripping 
boughs in a vapoury atmosphere, and there seemed no 
augury of sunlight in the blind grey sky. 

A rough hovel under a fir, used for the storing of wood, 
had given Yeoland and the harper shelter for the night. 
The sole refuge left to them by fire, the hut had served its 
purpose well enough, for grief is not given to grumbling 
over externals in the extremity of its distress. 

The girl Yeoland was astir early with the first twitter of 
the birds in the boughs overhead. Jaspar had made her 
a couch of straw, and she had lain there tossing to and fro 
with no thought of sleep. The moon had sunk early over 
the edge of the world, and heavy darkness had wrapped her 
anguish close about her soul, mocking her with the staring 
of a dead face. The burning tower had ceased to torch 
her vigil towards dawn ; yet there had been po fleeing 
from the pale candour of the night. 

A slim, white-faced woman she stood shivering in the 
doorway of the hovel. Her eyes were black and lustrous 
— swift, darting eyes full of dusky fire and vivid unrest. 
Her mouth ran a red streak, firm above her white chin. 
Her hair gleamed like sable steel. The world was cold 
about her for the moment, dead and inert as her own heart. 
As she stood there, fine and fragile as gossamer, the very 
trees seemed to weep for her with the dawning day. 

Some hundred paces from the hut, a cloud of smoke 
mingled with the mist that hung about the blackened walls 

9 


10 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


of the forest tower. Its windows were blind and frame- 
less to the sky \ a zone of charred wood and reeking ashes 
circled its base. The mist hung above it like a ghostly 
memory. The place looked desolate and pitiful enough 
in the meagre light. 

The girl Yeoland watched the incense of smoke wreath- 
ing grey spirals overhead, melting symbolic — into nothing- 
ness. The pungent scent of the ruin floated down to her, 
and became a recollection for all time. This blackened 
shell had been a home to her, a bulwark, nay, a cradle. 
Sanguine life had run ruddy through its heart. How often 
had she seen its grey brow crowned with gold by the mys- 
tic hierarchy of heaven. She had found much joy there 
and little sorrow. A wrinkled face had taught her these 
many years to cherish the innocence of childhood. All 
this was past ; the present found her bankrupt of such 
things. The place had become but a coflin, a charnel- 
house for the rotting bones of love. 

As she brooded in the doorway, the smite of a spade 
came ringing to her on the misty air. Terse and rhythmic, 
it was like the sound of Time plucking the hours from the 
Tree of Life. She looked out over the glade, and saw 
Jaspar the harper digging a shallow grave under an 
oak. 

She went and watched him, calmly, silently, with the 
utter quiet of a measureless grief. There was reason in 
this labour. It emphasised reality; helped her to grip the 
present. As the brown earth tumbled at her feet, she 
remembered how much she would bury in that narrow 
forest grave. 

The man Jaspar was a ruddy soul, like a red apple in 
autumn. His strong point was his loyalty, a virtue that 
had stiffened with the fibres of his heart. He could boast 
neither of vast intelligence, nor of phenomenal courage, 
but he had a conscience that had made gold of his whole 
rough, stunted body. Your clever servant is often a rogue ; 
in the respect of apt villainy, the harper was a fool. 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


II 


He ceased now and again from his digging, hung his 
hooked chin over his spade, and snuffed the savour of the 
clean brown earth. He thrust curt, furtive glances up 
into the girl’s face as she watched him, as though desirous 
of reading her humour or her health. 

‘‘You are weary,” she said to him anon, looking blankly 
into the trench. 

The man wagged his head. 

“ Have ye broken fast ? There is bread and dried fruit 
in the hut, and a pitcher of water.” 

“I cannot eat — yet,” she answered him. 

He sighed and continued his digging. The pile of russet 
earth increased on the green grass at her feet; the trench deep- 
ened. Jaspar moistened his palms, and toiled on, grunting 
as he hove his libations of soil over his shoulder. Presently 
he stood up again to rest. 

“ What will you do, madame ? ” he asked her, squinting 
at the clouds. 

“ Ride out.” 

“ And whither ? ” 

“Towards Gilderoy — as yet.” 

“Ah, ah, a fair town and strqng. John of Brissac is 
madame’s friend. Good. Have we money ? ” 

“ Some gold nobles.” 

They waxed silent again, and in a while the grave lay 
finished. ’Twas shallow, but what of that! It gave 
sanctuary enough for the dead. 

They went together, and gazed on the sleeping man’s 
face. It was grey, but very peaceful, with no hint of 
horror thereon. The eyes were closed, and dew had starred 
the white hair with a glistening web. Yeoland knelt and 
kissed the forehead. She shivered and her hands trembled, 
but she did not weep. 

So they carried the Lord Rual between them, for he was 
a spare man and frugal of frame, and laid him in the grave 
beneath the oak. When they had smoothed his hair, and 
crossed his hands upon his breast, they knelt and prayed to 


12 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


the Virgin and the saints that in God’s heaven he might 
have peace. The vv^ind in the boughs sang a forest 
requiem. 

When Yeoland had looked long at the white face in the 
trench, she rose from her knees, and pointed Jaspar to his 
spade. The harper took the measure of her mind. When 
she had passed into the shadows of the trees, he mopped 
his face, and entered on his last duty to the dead. It was 
soon sped, soon ended. A pile of clean earth covered the 
place. Jaspar banked the grave with turf, shouldered his 
spade, and returned to the hovel. 

He found the girl Yeoland seated on a fallen tree in the 
forest, her ebon hair and apple-green gown gleaming under 
the sweeping boughs. Her cheeks were white as windflowers, 
her eyes full of a swimming gloom. She raised her chin, 
and questioned the man mutely with a look that smouldered 
under her arched brows. 

“ Jaspar ? ” 

“ Madame ” 

‘‘ Have you entered the tower ? ” 

The man’s wrinkled face winced despite his years. 

‘‘Would you have me go?” he asked her in a hoarse 
undertone. 

She looked into the vast mazes of the woods, shuddered 
in thought, and was silent. Her mouth hardened ; the 
desire melted from her eyes. 

“No,” she said anon, turning her hood forward, and 
drawing a green cloak edged with sables about her, “ what 
would it avail us ? Let us sally at once.” 

A little distance away, their horses, that had been hob- 
bled over night, stood grazing quietly on a patch of grass 
under the trees. One was a great grey mare, the other a 
bay jennet, glossy as silk. Jaspar caught them. He was 
long over the girths and bridles, for his hands were stiflF, 
and his eyes dim. When he returned, Yeoland was still 
standing like a statue, staring at the blackened tower reek- 
ing amid the trees. 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


13 


“ Truly, they have burnt the anguish of it into my heart 
with fire,’’ she said, as Jaspar held her stirrup. 

“ God comfort you, madame ! ” 

‘‘ Let us go, Jaspar, let us go.” 

And whither, lady ? ” 

“ Where revenge may lead.” 

The day brightened as they plunged down into the forest. 
A light breeze rent the vapours, and a shimmer of sunlight 
quivered through the haze. The tree-tops began to glisten 
gold ; and there was life in the deepening promise of the 
sky. The empty woods rolled purple on the hills ; the 
greensward shone with a veil of gossamer; the earth grew 
glad. 

The pair had scant burden of speech upon their lips that 
morning. They were still benumbed by the violence of the 
night, and death still beckoned to their souls. Fate had 
smitten them with such incredible and ponderous brevity. 
On the dawn of yesterday, they had ridden out hawk on 
wrist into the wilds, lost the bird in a long flight, and turned 
homeward when evening was darkening the east. From a 
hill they had seen the tower lifting its flame like a red and 
revengeful finger to heaven. They had hastened on, with 
the glare of the fire spasmodic and lurid over the trees. In 
one short hour they had had speech with death, and came 
point to point with the bleak sword of eternity. 

What wonder then that they rode like mutes to a burial, 
still of tongue and dull of heart ? Life and the zest thereof 
were at low ebb, colourless as a wintry sea. Joy’s crimson 
wings were smirched and broken; the lute of youth was 
unstrung. A granite sky had drawn low above their heads, 
and to the girl a devil ruled the heavens. 

Before noon they had threaded the wild waste of wood- 
land that girded the tower like a black lagoon. They came 
out from the trees to a heath, a track that struck green and 
purple into the west, and boasted nought that could infringe 
the blue monotony of the sky. It was a wild region, swept 
by a wind that sighed perpetually amid the gorse and heather. 


14 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


By the black rim of the forest they had dismounted and 
partaken of bread and water before pushing on with a list- 
less persistence that won many miles to their credit. 

The man Jaspar was a phlegmatic soul in the hot sphere 
of action. He was a circumspect being who preferred 
heading for the blue calm of a haven in stormy weather, 
to thrusting out into the tossing spume of the unknown. 
The girl Yeoland, on the contrary, had an abundant spirit, 
and an untamed temper. Her black eyes roved restlessly 
over the world, and she tilted her chin in the face of Fate. 
Jaspar, knowing her fibre, feared for her moods with the 
more level prudence of stagnant blood. Her obstinacy 
was a hazardous virtue, hawk-like in sentiment, not given 
to perching on the boughs of reason. Moreover, being 
cumbered with a generous burden of pity, he was in mortal 
dread of wounding her pale proud grief. 

By way of being diplomatic, he began by hinting that 
there were necessities in life, trivial no doubt, but inevitable, 
as sleep and supper. 

“ Lord John of Brissac is your friend,” he meandered, 
“ a strong lord, and a great ; moreover, he hates those of 
Gambrevault, God chasten their souls ! Fontenaye is no 
long ride from Gilderoy. Madame will lodge there till 
she can come by redress ? ” 

Madame had no thought of being beholden to the 
gentleman in question. Jaspar understood as much from 
a very brief debate. Lord John of Brissac was forbidden 
favour, being as black a pard when justly blazoned as any 
seigneur of Gambrevault. The harper’s chin wagged on 
maugre her contradiction. 

“We have bread for a day,” he chirped, dropping upon 
banalities by way of seeming wise. “ The nights are cold, 
madame, damp as a marsh. As for the water-pot ” 

“Water may be had — for the asking.” 

“ And bread ? ” 

“ I have money.” 

“ Then we ride for Gilderoy ? ” 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


15 


The assumption was made with an excellent unction 
that betrayed the seeming sincerity of the philosopher. 
Yeoland stared ahead over her horse’s ears, with a clear 
disregard for Jaspar and his discretion. 

“We are like leaves blown about in autumn,” she said to 
him, “ wanderers with fortune. You have not grasped my 
temper. I warrant you, there is method in me.” 

Jaspar looked blank. 

“ Strange method, madame, to ride nowhere, to com- 
pass nothing.” 

She turned on him with a sudden rapid gleam out of her 
passionate eyes. 

“ Nothing ! You call revenge nothing ? ” 

The harper appealed to his favourite saint. 

“St. Jude forfend that madame should follow such a 
marsh fire,” he said. 

They had drawn towards the margin of the heath. 
Southwards it sloped to the rim of a great pine forest, 
that seemed to clasp it with ebonian arms. The place 
was black, mysterious, impenetrable, fringed with a pali- 
sading of dark stiff trunks, but all else, a vast undulation 
of sombre plumes. Its spires waved with the wind. 
There was a soundless awe about its sable galleries, a 
saturnine gloom that hung like a curtain. In the vague 
distance, a misty height seemed to struggle above the ocean 
of trees, like the back of some great beast. 

Yeoland, keen of face, reined in her jennet, and pointed 
Jaspar to this landscape of sombre hues. There was an 
alert lustre in her eyes ; she drew her breath more quickly, 
like one whose courage kindles at the cry of a trumpet. 

“ The Black Wild,” she said with a little hiss of eager- 
ness, and a glance that was almost fierce under her coal- 
black brows. 

Jaspar shook his head with the cumbersome wit of an ogre. 

“ Ha, yes, madame, a bloody region, packed with 
rumours, dark as its own trees ; no stint of terror, I war- 
rant ye. See yonder, the road to Gilderoy.” 


i6 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


The girl in the green cloak seemed strongly stirred 
by her own thoughts. Her face had a wild elfin look for 
the moment, a beautiful and daring insolence that deified 
her figure. 

“ And Gilderoy .? ” she said abstractedly. 

‘‘ Gilderoy lies south-east ; Gambrevault south-west 
many leagues. Southwards, one would find the sea, in due 
season. Eastwards, we touch Geraint, and the Roman 
road.” 

Yeoland nodded as though her mind were already ada- 
mant in the matter. 

“We will take to the forest,” ran her decretal. 

Here was crass sentiment extravagantly in the ascend- 
ant, mad wilfulness pinioning forth like a bat into gloom. 
Jaspar screwed his mouth into a red knot, blinked and 
waxed argumentative with a vehemence that did his cir- 
cumspection credit. 

“ A mad scheme.” 

“ What better harbour for the night than yonder trees ” 

“ Who will choose us a road ? I pray you consider it.” 

Yeoland answered him quietly enough. She had set her 
will on the venture, was in a desperate mood, and could 
therefore scorn reason. 

“Jaspar, my friend,” she said, “I am in a wild humour, 
and ripe for the wild region. Peril pleases me. The 
unknown ever draweth the heart, making promise of 
greater, stranger things. What have I to lose .? If you 
play the craven, I can go alone.” 


Ill 


The avenues of the pine forest engulfed the harper and 
the lady. The myriad crowded trunks hemmed them with 
a stubborn and impassive gloom. A faint wind moved in 
the tree-tops. Dim aisles struck into an ever-deepening 
mystery of shadow, as into the dark mazes of a dream. 

The wild was as some primaeval waste, desolate and ter- 
rible, a vast flood of sombre green rolling over hill and 
valley. Its thickets plunged midnight into the bosom of 
day. On the hills, the trees stood like traceried pinnacles, 
spears blood-red in the sunset, or splashed with the glitter- 
ing magic of the moon. There were dells sunk deep 
beneath crags ; choked with dense darkness, unsifted by 
the sun. Winding alleys white with pebbles as with the 
bones of the dead, wound through seething seas of gorse. 
In summer, heather sucked with purple lips at the tapestries 
of moss blazoning the ground, bronze, green, and gold. It 
was a wild region, and mysterious, a shadowland moaned 
over by the voice of a distressful wind. 

Yeoland held southwards by the gilded vane of the sun. 
She had turned back her hood upon her shoulders, and 
fastened her black hair over her bosom with a brooch of 
amethysts. The girl was wise in woodlore and the phi- 
losophies of nature. The sounds and sights of the forest 
were like a gorgeous missal to her, blazoned with all man- 
ner of magic colours. She knew the moods of hawk and 
hound, had camped often under the steely stare of a winter 
sky, had watched the many phases of the dawn. Hers was 
a nature ripe for the hazardous intent of life. It was she 
who led, not Jaspar. The harper followed her with a 

17 


l8 LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 

martyred reason, having, for all his discontent, some faith 
in her keen eyes and the delicate decision of her chin. 

There was a steady dejection in the girl’s mood — a 
dejection starred, however, with red wrath like sparks 
glowing upon tinder. She was no Agnes, no Amorette, 
mere pillar of luscious beauty. Her eyes were as blue- 
black shields, flashing with many sheens in the face of 
day. The flaming tower, the dead figure in the forest 
grave, had thrust the gentler part out of her being. She 
was miserable, mute, yet full of a volcanic courage. 

As for the harper, a rheumy dissatisfaction pervaded his 
temper. His blood ran cold as a toad’s in winter weather. 
He blew upon his fingers, dreaming of inglenooks and hot 
posset, and the casual luxuries the forest did not promise. 
Yeoland considered not the old man’s babblings. Her 
heart looked towards the dawn, and knew nothing of the 
twilight under the dark eaves of age. 

They had pressed a mile or more into the waste, and the 
day was waxing sere and yellow in the west. Before them 
ran a huge thicket, its floor splashed with tawny splendours, 
the sable plumes touched with gold by the sun. Its deep 
bosom hung full of purple gloom, dusted with amber, wild 
and windless. 

A sudden “ hist ” from his lady’s lips made the harper 
start in the saddle. Her hand had snatched at his bridle. 
Both horses came to a halt. The man looked at her as 
they sat knee to knee ; she was alert and vigilant, her eyes 
bright as the eyes of a hawk. 

“ Marked you that ? ” she said to him in a whisper. 

Jaspar gave her a vacant stare and shook his head. 

“ Nothing ? ” 

“ Boughs swaying in the wind, no more.” 

Yeoland enlightened him. 

“Tush. There’s no wind moving. A glimmer of 
armour, yonder, up the slope.” 

“ Holy Jude ! ” 

“ A flash, it has gone.” 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


19 


They held silent under the drooping boughs, listening, 
with noiseless breath. The breeze made mysterious mur- 
murings with a vague unrest ; now and again a twig 
cracked, or some forest sound floated down like a filmy 
moth on the quiet air. The trees were dumb and satur- 
nine, as though resenting suspicion of their sable aisles. 

Jaspar, peering over his shoulder, jerked out a word of 
warning. Yeoland, catching the monosyllable from his 
lips, and following his stare, glanced back into the eternal 
shadows of the place. 

“ I see nothing,” she said. 

Jaspar answered her slowly, his eyes still at gaze. 

“ A shadow slipping from trunk to trunk.” 

« Where ? ” 

“ I see it no longer. The saints succour us ! ” 

Yeoland’s face was dead white under her hair; her 
mouth gaped like a circle of jet. She listened constantly. 
Her head moved in stately fashion on her slim neck, as 
she shot glances hither and thither into the glooms, her 
eyes challenging the world. She felt peril, but was no 
craven in the matter — a contrast to Jaspar, who shook as 
with an ague. 

The harper’s distress broke forth into petulant declaiming. 

« Trapped,” he said ; ‘‘ I could have guessed as much, 
with all this fooling. These skulkers are like crows round 
carrion. Shall we lose much, madame ? ” 

‘‘ Gold, Jaspar, if they are content with such. What 
if they should be of Gambrevault ! ” 

The harper gave a quivering whistle, a shrill breath 
between his teeth, eloquent of the unpleasant savour of 
such a chance. It was beyond him for the moment 
whether he preferred being held up by a footpad, to being 
bullied by some ruffian of a feudatory. He had a mere 
bodkin of a dagger in his belt, and little lust for the letting 
of blood. 

“ ’Tis a chance, madame,” he said, with a certain lame 
sententiousness, “that had not challenged my attention. 


20 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


Say nothing of Cambremont ; one word would send us to 
the devil.” 

“Am I a fool? Since these gentlemen will not declare 
themselves, let us hold on and tempt their purpose.” 

Thinking to see the swirl of shadows under the trees, 
the glimmer of steel in the forest’s murk, they rode on at 
a lifeless trot. Nothing echoed to their thoughts. The 
woods stood impassive, steeped in solitude. There was a 
strange atmosphere of peace about the place that failed to 
harmonise their fears. Yet like a prophecy of wind there 
stole in persistently above the muffled tramp of hoofs, a 
dull, characterless sound, touched with the crackling of 
rotten wood, that seemed to hint at movement in the 
shadows. 

The pair pressed on vigilant and silent. Anon they 
came to a less multitudinous region, where the trees 
thinned, and a columned ride dwindled into infinite gloom. 
Betwixt the black stems of the trees flashed sudden a 
streak of scarlet, torchlike in the shadows. An armed 
rider in a red cloak, mounted on a sable horse, kept vigil 
silently between the boles of two great firs. He was im- 
mobile as rock, his spear set rigid on his thigh, his red 
plume sweeping the green fringes of the trees. 

This solemn figure stood like a sanguinary challenge to 
Yeoland and the harper. Here at least was something 
tangible in the flesh, more than a mere shadow. The pair 
drew rein, questioning each other mutely with their eyes, 
finding no glimmer of hope on either face. 

As they debated with their glances over the hazard, a 
voice came crying weirdly through the wood. 

“ Pass on,” it said, “ pass on. Pay ye the homage of the 
day.” 

This forest cry seemed to loosen the dilemma. Cer- 
tainly it bore wisdom in its counsel, seeing that it advised 
the inevitable, and ordered action. Yeoland, bankrupt of 
resource, took the unseen herald at his word, and rode on 
slowly towards the knight on the black horse. 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


21 


The man abode their coming like a statue, his red cloak 
shining sensuously under the sombre green of the boughs. 
A canopy of golden fire arched him in the west. He sat 
his horse with a certain splendid arrogance, that puzzled 
not a little the conjectures of Yeoland and the harper. 
This was neither the mood nor the equipment of a vaga- 
bond soul. The fine spirit of the picture hinted briskly 
at Gambrevault. 

The pair came to a halt under the two firs. The man 
towered above them on his horse, grim and gigantic, a 
great statue in black and burnished steel. His salade with 
beaver lowered shone ruddy in the sun. His saddle was 
of scarlet leather, bossed with brass and fringed with sable 
cord. Gules flamed on his shield, devoid of all device, a 
strong wedge of colour, bare and brave. 

The girl caught the gleam of the man’s eyes through the 
grid of his vizor. He appeared to be considering her much 
at his leisure with a keen silence, that was not wholly 
comforting. Palpably he was in no mood for haste, or for 
such casual courtesies that might have ebbed from his 
soundless strength. 

Full two minutes passed before a deep voice rolled 
sonorously from the cavern of the casque. 

“ Madame,” it said, “ be good enough to consider your- 
self my prisoner. Rest assured that I bring you no peril 
save the peril of an empty purse.” 

There was a certain powerful complacency in the voice, 
pealing with the deep clamour of a bell through the silence 
of the woods. The man seemed less ponderous and sinis- 
ter, giant that he was. The girl’s eyes fenced with him 
fearlessly under the trees. 

Presumably,” she said to him, “ you are a notorious 
fellow; I have the misfortune to be ignorant of these 
parts and their possessors. Be so courteous as to unhelm 
to me.” 

Her tone did not stir the man from his reserve of gravity. 
Her words were indeed like so many ripples breaking 


22 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


against a rock. The voice retorted to her calmly from 
the helmet. 

“ Madame, leave matters to my discretion.” 

She smiled in his face despite herself, a smile half of 
petulance, half of relish. 

“You pretend to wisdom, sir.” 

“ Forethought, madame.” 

“ Am I your prisoner? ” 

“ No new thing, madame ; I have possessed you since 
you ventured into these shadows.” 

He made a gesture with his spear, holding it at arm’s 
length above his head, where it quivered like a reed in his 
staunch grip. A sound like the moving of a distant wind 
arose. The dark alleys of the wood grew silvered with 
a circlet of steel. The shafts of the sunset flickered on 
pike and bassinet, gleaming amid the verdured glooms. 
Again the man’s spear shook, again the noise as of a wind, 
and the girdle of steel melted into the shadows. 

“ Madame is satisfied ? ” 

She sucked in her breath through her red lips, and was 
mute. 

“ Leave matters to my discretion. You there, in the 
brown smock, fall back twenty paces. Madame, I wait 
for you. Let us go cheek by jowl.” 

The man wheeled his horse, shook his spear, hurled a 
glance backward over his shoulder into the woods. There 
was no gainsaying him for the moment. Yeoland, bend- 
ing to necessity, sent Jaspar loitering, while she flanked 
the black destrier with her brown jennet. She debated 
keenly within herself whither this adventure could be 
leading her, as she rode on with this unknown rider into 
the wilds. 

The man in the red cloak was wondrous mute at first, 
an iron pillar of silence gleaming under the trees. The 
girl knew that he was watching her from behind his salade, 
for she caught often the white glimmer of his stare. He 
bulked largely in the descending gloom, a big man deep 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


23 


of chest, with shoulders like the broad ledges of some sea- 
washed rock. He was richly appointed both as to his 
armour and his trappings; to Yeoland his shield showed 
a blank face, and he carried no crest or token in his helmet. 

They had ridden two furlongs or more before the man 
stepped from his pedestal of silence. He had been study- 
ing the girl with the mood of a philosopher, had seen her 
stark, strained look, the woe in her eyes, the firm closure 
of her lips. The strong pride of grief in her had pleased 
him ; moreover he had had good leisure to determine the 
character of her courage. His first words were neither 
very welcome to the girl’s ears nor productive of great 
comfort, so far as her apprehensions were concerned. 
Bluntly came the calm challenge from the casque. 

“ Daughter of Rual of Cambremont, you have changed 
little these five years.” 

Yeoland gave the man a stare. Seeing that his features 
were screened by his helmet, the glance won her little satis- 
faction. She knew that he was watching her to his own 
profit, and her discovery, for the reflex look she had flashed 
at him, must have told him all he desired, if he had any 
claim to being considered observant. There was that also 
in the tone and tenor of his words that implied that he had 
ventured no mere tentative statement, but had spoken to 
assure her that her name and person were not unknown 
to l^im. Acting on the impression, she tacitly confessed to 
the justice of his charge. 

‘‘ Palpably,” she said, “ my face is known to you.” 

“ Even so, madame.” 

“ How long will you hold me at a disadvantage ” 

“ Is ignorance burdensome ? ” 

She imagined of a sudden that the man was smiling 
behind his beaver. Being utterly serious herself, she 
discovered an illogical lack of sympathy in the stranger’s 
humour. Moreover she was striving to spell Gambre- 
vault from the alphabet of word and gesture, and to come 
to an understanding with the doubts of the moment. 


24 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


“ Messire,” she began. 

‘‘ Madame,” he retorted. 

Are you mere stone ? ” 

For answer he lapsed into sudden reflection. 

‘‘It is five years ago this Junetide,” he said, “since the 
King and the Court came to Gilderoy.” 

“ Gilderoy ? ” 

“ You know the town, madame ? ” 

She stared back upon a sudden vision of the past, a past 
gorgeous with the crimson fires of youth. That Junetide 
she had worn a new green gown, a silver girdle, a red rose 
in her hair. There had been jousting in the Gilderoy 
meadows, much braying of trumpets, much splendour, 
much pomp of arms. She remembered the scent and 
colour of it all ; the blaze of tissues of gold and green, 
purple and azure. She remembered the flickering of a 
thousand pennons in the wind, the fair women thronging 
the galleries like flowers burdening a bowl. The vision 
came to her undefiled for the moment, a dream-memory, 
calm as the first pure pageant of spring. 

“ And you, messire ? ” she said, with more colour of face 
and soul. 

“ Rode in the King’s train.” 

“ A noble ? ” 

“ Do I bulk for a cook or a falconer ? ” 

“ No, no. Yet you remember me ? ” 

“ As it were yesterday, walking in the meadows at your 
father’s side — your father, that Rual who carried the banner 
when the King’s men stormed Gaerlent these forty years 
ago. Not, madame, that I followed that war ; I was a mass 
of swaddling-clothes puking in a cradle. So we grow old.” 

The girl’s face had darkened again on the instant. 
The man in the red cloak saw her eyes grow big of 
pupil, her lips straightened into a colourless line. She 
held her head high, and stared into the purple gloom of 
the woods. Memories were with her. The present had 
an iron hand upon her heart. 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


25 


“ Time changes many things,” he said, with a discretion 
that desired to soften the silence j “ we go from cradle to 
throne in one score years, from life to clay in a moment. 
Pay no homage to circumstance. The wave covers the 
rock, but the granite shows again its glistening poll when 
the water has fallen. A Hercules can strangle Fate. As 
for me, I know not whether I have soared in the estimation 
of heaven ; yet I can swear that I have lost much of the 
vagabond, sinful soul that straddled my shoulders in the 
past.” 

There was a warm ruggedness about the man, a flippant 
self-knowledge, that touched the girl’s fancy. He was 
either a strong soul, or an utter charlatan, posing as a 
Diogenes. She preferred the former picture in her heart, 
and began to question him again with a species of pictu- 
resque insolence. 

‘‘ I presume, messire,” she said, “ that you have some 
purpose in life. From my brief dealings with you, I should 
deem you a very superior footpad. I gather that it is your 
intention to rob me. I confess that you seem a gentleman 
at the business.” 

The man of the red cloak laughed in his helmet. 

“To be frank, madame,” he said, “you may dub me a 
gatherer of taxes.” 

“ Explain.” 

“ Being unfortunates and outcasts from the lawful ways 
of life, my men and I seek to remedy the injustice of the 
world by levying toll on folk more happy than ourselves.” 

“ Then you condemn me as fortunate ? ” 

“ Your defence, madame.” 

The girl smiled with her lips, but her eyes were hard and 
bright as steel. 

“ I might convince you otherwise,” she said, “ but no 
matter. Why should I be frank with a thief, even though 
he be nobly born ? ” 

“ Because, madame, the thief may be of service to the 
lady.” 


26 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


“ I have little silver for your wallet.” 

‘‘ Am I nothing but a money-bag ! ” 

She looked up at him with a straight stare j her voice 
was level, even imperious. 

“ Put up your vizor,” she said to him. 

The man in the black harness hesitated, then obeyed her. 
She could see little of his face, however, save that it was 
bronzed, and that the eyes were very masterful. She ven- 
tured further in the argument, being bent on fathoming the 
baser instincts of the business. 

“ Knight of the red shield,” she said. 

“ Madame ? ” 

“ I ask you an honest question. If you would serve me, 
speak the truth, and let me know my peril. Are you the 
Lord Flavian of Gambrevault, or no ? ” 

The man never hesitated an instant. There was no 
wavering to cast doubt upon his sincerity, or upon his 
intelligence as a liar. 

“ No, madame,” he answered her, “ I am not the Lord 
of Gambrevault and Avalon, and may I, for the sake of my 
own neck, never come single-handed within his walls. I 
have an old feud with the lords of Gambrevault, and when 
the chance comes, I shall settle it heavily to my credit. If 
you have any ill to say of the gentleman, pray say it, and 
be happy in my sympathy.” 

“ Ha,” she said, with a sudden flash of malice, “ I would 
give my soul for that fellow’s head.” 

‘‘ So,” quoth the man, with a keen look, that would be a 
most delectable bargain,” 


IV 


The stems thinned about them suddenly, and the sky 
grew great beyond a more meagre screen of boughs. To 
the west, breaking the blood-red canopy with an edge of 
agate, rocks towered heavenwards, smiting golden-fanged 
into a furnace of splendour. Waves of light beat in spray 
upon the billowy masses of the trees, dying in the east into 
a majestic mask of gloom. 

Yeoland and the man in red came forth into a little 
glade, hollowed by the waters of a rush-edged pool. A 
stream, a scolloped sheet of foam, stumbled headlong into 
the mere, vanishing beyond like a frail white ghost into 
the woods. A fire danced in the open, and under the 
trees stood a pavilion of red cloth. 

The man dismounted and held the girl’s stirrup. A 
quick glance round the glade had shown her bales of mer- 
chandise, littering the green carpet of the place, horses 
tethered in the wood, men moving like gnomes about the 
fire. Even as she dismounted, streaks of steel shone out 
in the surrounding shadows. Armed men streamed in, 
and piled their pikes and bills about the pines. 

At the western end of the glade, a gigantic fir, a forest 
patriarch, stood out above the more slender figures of 
his fellows. The grotesque roots, writhing like talons, 
tressled a bench of boughs and skins. Before the tree 
burnt a fire, the draught sweeping upwards to fan the 
fringe of the green fir’s gown. The man in the black 
harness took Yeoland to the seat under the tree. The 
boughs arched them like a canopy, and the wood fire gave 
a lusty heat in the gloaming. 

27 


28 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


A boy had run forward to unhelm the knight in the red 
cloak. Casque and sword lay on the bench of boughs and 
skins. The girl’s glance framed for the first time the 
man’s face. She surveyed him at her leisure under droop- 
ing lids, with a species of reticent interest that escaped 
boldness. It was one of those incidents to her that stand 
up above the plain of life, and build individual history. 

She saw a bronzed man with a tangle of tawny-red 
hair, a great beak of a nose, and a hooked chin. His eyes 
were like amber, darting light into the depth of life, alert, 
deep, and masterful. There was a rugged and indomitable 
vigour in the face. The mouth was of iron, yet not un- 
kind ; the jaw ponderous ; the throat bovine. The mask of 
youth had palpably forsaken him ; Life, that great chiseller 
of faces, had set her tool upon his features, moulding them 
into a strenuous and powerful dignity that suited his soul. 

He appeared to fathom the spirit of the girl’s scrutiny, 
nor did he take umbrage at the open and critical revision 
of her glances. He inferred calmly enough, that she con- 
sidered him by no means blemishless in feature or in at- 
mosphere. Probably he had long passed that age when the 
sanguine bachelor never doubts of plucking absolute favour 
from the eyes of a woman. The girl was not wholly 
enamoured of him. He was rational enough to read that 
in her glances. 

“ Madame is in doubt,” he said to her, with a glimmer of 
a smile. 

“ As to what, messire ? ” 

“ My character.” 

“ You prefer the truth ? ” 

“ Am I not a philosopher ? ” 

‘‘ Hear the truth then, messire, I would not have you for 
a master.” 

The man laughed, a quiet, soundless laugh through half- 
closed lips. There was something magnetic about his 
grizzled and ironical strength, cased in its shell of black- 
ened steel. He had the air of one who had learnt to toy 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


29 


with his fellows, as with so many strutting puppets. The 
world was largely a stage to him, grotesque at some seasons, 
strenuous at others. 

Ha, a miracle indeed,” he said, “ a woman who can tell 
the truth.” 

She ignored the gibe and ran on. 

“ Your name, messire ? ” 

The man spread his hands. 

‘‘ Pardon the omission. I am known as Fulviac of the 
Forest. My heritage I judge to be the sword, and the 
shadows of these same wilds.” 

Yeoland considered him awhile in silence. The fire- 
light flickered on his harness, glittering on the ribbed and 
jointed shoulder plates, striking a golden streak from the 
edge of each huge pauldron. Mimic flames burnt red 
upon his black cuirass, as in a darkened mirror. The 
night framed his figure in an aureole of gloom, as he sat 
with his massive head motionless upon its rock-like throat. 

“ Five years ago,” she said suddenly, ‘‘ you rode as a noble 
in the King’s train. Now you declare yourself a thief. 
These things do not harmonise unless you confess to a 
dual self.” 

“ Madame,” he answered her, “ I confess to nothing. If 
you would be wise, eschew the past, and consider the pres- 
ent at your service. I am named Fulviac, and I am an 
outlaw. Let that grant you satisfaction.” 

Yeoland glanced over the glade, walled in with the gloom 
of the woods, the stream foaming in the dusk, the armed 
men gathered about the further fire. 

“ And these ? ” she asked. 

“ Are mine.” 

“ Outcasts also ? ” 

“ Say no hard things of them ; they are folk whom the 
world has treated scurvily 5 therefore they are at feud with 
the world. The times are out of joint, tyrannous and 
heavy to bear. The nobles like millstones grind the poor 
into pulp, tread out the life from them, that the wine of 


30 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


pleasure may flow into gilded chalices. The world is 
trampled under foot. Pride and greed go hand in hand 
against us.” 

She looked at him under her long lashes, with the zest 
of cavil slumbering in her eyes. Autocracy was a heredi- 
tary right with her, even though feudalism had slain her 
sire. 

“ I would have the mob held in check,” she said to him. 

And how ? By cutting off a man’s ears when he spits 
a stag. By splitting his nose for some small sin. By 
branding beggars who thieve because their children starve. 
Oh, equable and honest justice ! God prevent me from 
being poor.” 

She looked at him with her great solemn eyes. 

“ And you ? ” she asked. 

He spread his arms with a half-flippant dignity. 

“ I, madame, I take the whole world into my bosom.” 

“ And play the Christ weeping over Jerusalem ? ” 

“ Madame, your wit is excellent.” 

A spit had been turning over the large fire, a haunch of 
venison being basted thereon by a big man in the cassock 
of a friar. Certain of Fulviac’s fellows came forward bear- 
ing wine in silver-rimmed horns, white bread and meat upon 
platters of wood. They stood and served the pair with a 
silent and soldierly briskness that bespoke discipline. The 
girl’s hunger was as healthy as her sleek, plump neck, 
despite the day’s hazard and her homeless peril. 

Dusk had fallen fast ; the last pennon of day shone an 
eerie streak of saffron in the west. The forest stood 
wrapped in the stupendous stillness of the night. An 
impenetrable curtain of ebony closed the glade with its 
rush-edged pool. 

Fulviac’s servers had retreated to the fire, where a ring 
of rough faces shone in the wayward light. The sound of 
their harsh voices came up to the pair in concord with the 
perpetual murmur of the stream. Yeoland had shaken the 
bread-crumbs from her green gown. She was comforted 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


31 


in the flesh, and ready for further foining with the man who 
posed as her captor. 

“ Sincerity is a rare virtue,” she said, with a slight lifting 
of the angles of her mouth. 

“ I can endorse that dogma.” 

“ Do you pretend to the same ? ” 

“ Possibly.” 

“ You love the poor, conceive their wrongs to be your 
own ? ” 

Fulviac smiled in his eyes like a man pleased with his 
own thoughts. 

“ Have I not said as much ” 

“ Well ? ” 

“ I revere my own image.” 

“ And fame ? ” 

He commended her and unbosomed in one breath. 

“ Pity,” he said, ‘‘ is often a species of splendid pride. We 
toil, we fight, we labour. Why ? Because below all life 
and effort, there burns an immortal egotism, an eternal 
vanity. ‘ Liberty, liberty,’ we cry, ‘ liberty and justice 
man for man.’ Yet how the soul glows at the sound of 
its own voice ! The human self hugs fame, and mutters, 
‘ Lo, what a god am I in the eyes of the world ! ’ ” 


V 


Silence fell between them for a season, a silence deep 
and intangible as the darkness of the woods. The man’s 
mood had recovered its subtle calm, even as a pool that 
has been stirred momentarily by the plashing of a stone 
sinks into rippleless repose. He sat with folded arms be- 
fore the flare of the fire, watching the girl under his heavy 
brows. 

She was very fair to look upon, slim, yet spirited as a 
band of steel. Her ears shone out from her dusky hair 
like apple blossoms in a mist of leaves. Her lips were 
blood-red, sensitive, clean as the petals of a rose. Her 
great grief had chastened her. From the curve of her 
neck to the delicate strength of her white hands, she was 
as rich an idyll as a man could desire. 

Fulviac considered her with a thought that leant philo- 
sophically towards her beauty. He had grown weary of 
love in his time ; the passions of youth had burnt to dry 
ashes; possibly he had been luckless in his knowledge of 
the sex. He had married a wife of irreproachable birth, a 
lady with a sharp nose and a lipless mouth, eyes of green, 
and a most unholy temper. She was dead, had been dead 
many years. The man had no delirious desire to meet her 
again in heaven. As for this girl, he had need of her for 
revolutionary reasons, and his mood to her was more that 
of a father. Her spirit pleased him. Moreover, he knew 
what he knew. 

Gazing at the flames, he spread his hands to them, and 
entered again on the confines of debate. His voice had 
the steady, rhythmic insistence of a bell pealing a curfew. 
Its tone was that of a man not willing to be gainsaid, 

32 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


33 


“ Therefore, madame, I would have you understand that 
I desire in some measure to be a benefactor to the human 
race.” 

“ I take your word for it,” she answered him. 

“ That I am an ambitious man, somewhat vain towards 
fame, one that can glow in soul.” 

“ A human sun.” 

‘‘ So.” 

“ That loves to be thought great through warming the 
universe.” 

Madame, you are epigrammatic.” 

“ Or enigmatic, messire.” 

‘‘As you will,” he answered her; “your womanhood 
makes you an enigma ; it is your birthright. Understand 
that I possess power.” 

“Fifty cut-throats tied to a purse.” 

“ Consider me a serious figure in the world’s sum.” 

“As you will, messire. You are an outlaw, a leader of 
fifty vagabonds, a man with ideals as to the establishing of 
justice. You are going to subvert the country. Very 
good. I have learnt my lesson. But how is all this going 
to help me out of the wood ? ” 

Fulviac took- his sword, and balanced it upon his wrist. 
The red light from the fire flashed on the swaying 
steel. 

“Our hopes are more near of kin, madame, than you 
imagine.” 

“ Well ? ” 

“Flavian of Gambrevault’s raiders burnt your home, 
slew your father, exterminated your brethren. This hap- 
pened but a day ago. You do not love this Flavian of 
Gambrevault.” 

Her whole figure stiffened spasmodically as at the prick 
of a sword. Her eyes, with widely open pupils, flashed up 
to Fulviac’s face. She questioned him through her set 
teeth with a passionate whisper of desire. 

“ How you know this ” 


34 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


His face mellowed ; the arm bearing the sword was 
steady as the limb of an oak. 

“ I am wiser in many ways than you imagine,” he said. 
“ Look at me, I am no longer young ; I hate women ; I 
patronise God. You are a mere child; to you life is dark 
and perilous as this wilderness of pines. Your trouble is 
known to me, because it is my business to know of such 
things. It was my deliberate intent that you should fall 
into my hands to-day.” 

The girl was still rigidly astonied. She stared at him 
mutely with dubious eyes. The man and his philosophy 
were beyond her for the moment. 

“Well ? ” she said to him with a quaver of entreaty. 

“ First, you will honour me by saying that I have your 
trust.” 

“ How may I promise you that ? ” 

“ Because I am surety for my own honour.” 

She smiled in his face despite the occasion. 

“You seem very sure of your own soul,” she said. 

“ Madame, it has taken me ten years to come by so 
admirable a state. Self-knowledge carried to the depths, 
builds up self-trust. I may take it for granted that you 
hate the Lord Flavian of Gambrevault ? ” 

“ Need you ask that ! ” 

Her eyes echoed the mood of the flame. Fulviac, watch- 
ing her, saw the strong wrack of wrath twisting her delicate 
features for the moment into pathetic ugliness. 

“You have courage,” he said to her. 

“ Ample, messire.” 

“ Flavian of Gambrevault is the greatest lord in the 
south.” 

“I am as wise.” 

“On that score, this Flavian and Fulviac of the Forest 
are irreconcilable as day and night.” 

The man stood his sword pommel upwards in the grass, 
and ran on. 

“ Some day I shall slay this same Flavian of Gambre- 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 35 

vault. His blood will expiate the blood of these your 
kinsfolk. Therefore, madame, you will be my debtor.” 

That is all ? ” she asked him with a wistfulness in her 
voice that was even piteous. 

Fulviac looked long into the fire like a man whose 
thoughts channel under the crust of years. Pity for the 
girl had gone to the heart under the steel cuirass, a pity 
that was not the pander of desire. His eyes took a new 
meaning into their keen depths ; he looked to have grown 
suddenly younger by some years. When he spoke again, 
his voice had lost its half-mocking and grandiose confidence. 
It was the voice of a man who strides generous and eager 
into the breach of fate. 

“ Listen,” he said to her, “ I may tell you that your 
sorrow has armed my manhood. Give me my due; I am 
more than a mere vagabond. You have been cruelly dealt 
with ; I take your cause upon the cross of my sword.” 

“ You, messire ? ” 

“Even so. I need a good woman, a brave woman. 
You please me.” 

“ Well ? ” 

“You are a necessity to me.” 

“ And why, messire ? ” 

“For a matter of religion and of justice. Trust to my 
honour. You shall learn more in due season.” 

Yeoland, smitten with incredulity, stared at the man in 
mute surmise. Here was an amazing circumstance — 
robbery idealised, soul, body, purse, at one bold swoop. In 
her mystification, she could find nothing to say to the man 
for the moment, even though he had promised her a 
refuge. 

“ You are very sure of yourself,” she said at length. 

“ I am a man.” 

“ Yet you leave me in ignorance.” 

“ Madame, we are to undertake great deeds together, 
great perils. I could hold up an astonishing future to your 
eyes, but for the present I keep silence. Rest assured 


36 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


that you shall be accorded such honour as the Virgin her- 
self could desire. Remember that I give you promise of 
vengeance, and a home.” 

The girl drew a deep breath, as though taking the spirit 
of the hour into her bosom. 

“ If I refuse ? ” she said to him. 

“ Y ou cannot refuse,” came the level retort. 

“ And why, mcssire ? ” 

“Your consent, though pleasant, is not necessary in the 
matter. I have long ago determined to appropriate you to 
my ambition.” 


VI 


Fulviac’s lair lay deep within the waving wilderness of 
pines. Above the spires of the forest, a massive barrier of 
rock thrust up its rugged bartisans into the blue. East 
and west it stretched a mile or more, concavitated towards 
the north, and standing like a huge breakwater amid the 
sea of boughs. 

The rocky plateau above was peopled by pines and 
rowans, thatched also with a wild tangle of briar, whin, and 
heather. Crannies cleft into it ; caves tunnelled its massive 
bosom ; innumerable minarets of stone mingled with the 
wind-wracked trees. The cliffs rose like the walls of a 
castle donjon from the forest floor, studded with dwarf 
trees, bearded with ferns and grass. The plateau was inac- 
cessible from the forest save by a thin rocky track, where 
the western slope of the cliff tailed off to merge into the 
trees. 

The significance of the place to Fulviac lay in the ex- 
istence of a cavern or series of caves piercing the cliff, 
and opening both upon the southern and northern facades 
of the mass. A wooden causeway led to the southern 
entry, bridging a small gorge where a stream foamed under 
the pines. The yawn of the southern opening had been 
built up with great blocks of stone, and the rough walls 
pierced by narrow squints, and a gate opening under a 
rounded arch. 

Within, the roof of the main cavern arched abruptly 
upwards, hollowing a great dome over the smooth floor 
beneath. This grotesque and rock-ripped hall served as 
guard-room and dormitory, a very various chamber. Wind- 

37 


38 


LOFE AMONG THE RUINS 


ing ways smote from it into the black bowels of the cliff. 
The height of the main cavern dwindled as it tunnelled 
northwards into the rock. A second wall of stone parti- 
tioned the guard-room from a second and smaller chamber, 
lit always by a great lamp pendent from the ceiling, a 
chamber that served Fulviac as state-room. 

From Fulviac’s parlour the cavern narrowed to a throat- 
like gallery that had been expanded by human craft into a 
third and smaller room. This last rock chamber was 
wholly more healthy and habitable than the others. Its 
walls stood squarely from floor to rocky roof, and it was 
blessed with a wide casement, that stared northwards over 
a vista of obeisant trees. A postern gave entry to the 
room from a narrow platform, and from this ledge a stair- 
way cut in the flank of the cliff dwindled into the murk of 
the forest below. 

A more romantic atmosphere had swept into the bleak 
galleries of the place that winter. Plundered stores were 
ransacked, bales of merchandise ungirded, caskets and chests 
pilfered as for the endowing of the chamber of a queen. 
The northern room in the cliff blossomed into the rich 
opulence of a lady’s bower. Its stone walls were panelled 
with old oak carvings taken from some ancient manor. 
There were tapestries of green, gold, and purple ; an 
antique bed with a tester of silver silk, its flanks blazoned 
with coloured escutcheons. Painted glass, azure, red, and 
gold, jewelled the casement, showing also Sebastian bound 
to his martyr’s tree. A Jew merchant plundered on the 
road had surrendered a set of brazen ewers, a lute inlaid 
with pearl, a carpet woven on the looms of the purple East. 
There were mirrors of steel about the walls. A carved 
prayer-desk, an embroidery frame, a crucifix wrought in 
ivory: Fulviac had consecrated all these to Yeoland, dead 
Rual’s daughter. 

A white lily amid a horde of thistles ! The girl’s life 
had drawn under the black shadow of the cliff, and into the 
clanging torrent of these rough men of the sword. It was 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


39 


a wild age and a wild region. Fulviac’s rogues were like 
wolves in a forest lair, keen, bloody, and relentless. There 
was a rude strain of violence running through the strenuous 
mood of the place, like the song of Norse rovers, piercing 
the roar of the sea. Mystery enveloped the girl, war, and 
the sound of the sword. She fumbled at the riddle of Fate 
with the trembling fingers of one who unbars a prison gate 
in the hush of night. It was all strange and fantastic 
beyond the riot of a dream. 

“Madame,” Fulviac had said to her when he had hung a 
key at her girdle, “ I have bidden you trust me ; remember 
that I trust you in turn. Take this room as your sanctu- 
ary. Lock me out when you will. I prepare, among 
other things, to perfect your vengeance.” 

Yeoland suffered him and her necessity. She was 
shrewdly wise in the conviction that it would be useless 
to rebel against the man. Though over-masterful and 
secretive, his purpose appeared benignant in the opulence 
of its favour. Moreover, the forest was as a vast web 
holding her within the maze of the unknown. 

“ I have no alternative,” she said to him, “ I am in your 
power. And yet, I believe you are no villain.” 

“ Your charity pleases me. I am a man with a strong 
purpose.” 

“ For good ? ” 

“ Do I not need you ” 

“ Am I then so powerful a person t ” 

“You will learn anon.” 

“ You seem something of a mystic,” she said to him. 

“Madame,” he retorted, “ trust my discretion. Indue 
season I shall unfold to you certain aspects of life that 
will kindle your sympathies. I shall appeal to the woman 
in you. When you are wise you will commend my am- 
bition.” 

“ You speak in riddles.” 

“ Wait. As yet you see through a glass darkly.” 

From the mountainous north to the warm southern sea, 


40 


L0V£ AMONG THE RUINS 


from the wooded west to the eastern fens, the good King 
ruled, holding many great barons in feudal faith, and cast- 
ing his fetters of gold over Church and State. Chivalry 
moved through the world to the clangour of arms and the 
songs of the troubadour. Lutes sounded on terrace and 
in garden, fair women bloomed like roses, bathed in a sen- 
suous blaze of romance. Baron made war upon baron; 
glory and death were crowned together. The painter spread 
his colours in the halls of the great ; the goldsmith and the 
carver wrought wondrous things to charm the eye. Church 
bells tolled. Proud abbots carried the sword, and made fine 
flutter among the women. Innumerable saints crowded the 
avenues to heaven. It was a fair age and very lovely, full 
of colour and desire, music and the odour of romance. 

And the poor ? Their lot hung largely on the humour 
of an overlord, or the state of a gentleman’s stomach. They 
had their saints’ days, their games, their pageants, their 
miracle plays. They had hovels of clay and wattle ; labour 
in wind and rain ; plagues and pestilences in the rotting 
filth of their city alleys. They marked the great folk go 
by in silks and cloth of gold, saw the pomp and opulence 
of that other life, remembered their own rags and their 
squealing children. 

And yet, consider the broad inclinations of the world. 
To eat, to be warm, to satisfy the flesh, to ease a lust, to 
drink beer. There was no very vast gulf betwixt the rich 
man and the poor. The one feasted to music, the other 
scraped a bone to the dirge of toil. They had like appe- 
tites, like satisfactions, and hell is considered to be Utopian 
in the extreme. The poor man envied the rich ; the rich 
man ruled the poor. Envy, that jingling demagogue, has 
made riotous profit out of such a stew since the world was 
young. 

Fulviac’s cliff was shut out from the ken of man by 
leagues of woodland, moor, and waste. The great pine 
forest girded it in its inmost bosom. No wayfarers rode 
that way ; no huntsman ranged so deep ; the place had an 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


41 


evil rumour; many whom it had welcomed had never re- 
turned. Romancers had sung of it, the lay of Guingamor. 
Horror ruled black-browed over its pine-cumbered hills, its 
gloomy depths. Solitude abode there, as over a primaeval 
sea, and there was no sound save the moan or storm-cry 
of the wind over its troubled trees. 

According to legend lore, Romulus peopled Rome with 
the offscourings of Italy. Fulviac had emulated the device 
with the state-craft of a strong conspirator. The forest 
stood a grand accomplice, abetting him with its myriad 
sentinels, who gossiped solely with the wind. The venture 
had been finely conceived, finely edificated. A cliff, a cave, 
five-score armed men. Not a vast power on the face of 
it to threaten a system or to shake a throne. Superficial- 
ities were fallacious, the surface false and fair as glistening 
ice. The forest hid more than a company of ruffians 
banded together to resist tyranny. Enthusiasm, genius, 
vigour, such torches, like a burning hovel, can fling a city 
into flame. 

As for the girl Yeoland, she was more than mocked by 
the swift vagaries of life. Two days of mordant realism 
had erased from her heart the dream visions of childhood. 
To be declared homeless, kinless, in one day; to be bereft 
of liberty the next ! To what end ? She stared round the 
richly-garnished room into which Fate had thrust her, 
fingered the pearl-set lute, gazed at her own face in the 
steel mirrors. She was the same woman, yet how differ- 
ently circumstanced! Fulviac’s mood had not hinted at 
love, or at any meaner jest. What power could he proph- 
esy to his advantage in the mere fairness of her face ? 
What wcs the gall of a woman’s vengeance to a man who 
had con:eived the downfall of a kingdom ? 

Her knowledge of psychology was rustic in the extreme, 
and she had no wit for the unravelling of Fulviac’s subtle- 
ties. There were certain convictions, however, that abode 
with her even in her ignorance. She could have taken oath 
that he was no mere swashbuckler, no captain of outlaws, 


42 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


no mere spoiler of men. Moreover, she believed him to be 
the possessor of some honour, and a large guerdon of virility. 
Lastly, pity appealed her as a sentiment not to be discarded. 
The man, whoever he might be, appeared desirous of put- 
ting his broad shoulders betwixt her and the world. 

Fulviac grew perspicuous sooner than she could have 
prophesied. He had a fine, cloud-soaring way with him 
that seemed to ignore the mole-hills of common circum- 
spection. He had wit enough also to impose his trust on 
others with a certain graceful confidence that carried bribery 
in the very generosity of its hardiness. 

March was upon them like a spirit of discord, wild, riot- 
ous weather, with the wind thundering like storm-waves 
upon the cliff. The pines were buffeting each other in the 
forest, and reeling beneath the scourgings of the breeze. 
Fulviac came to the girl one windy noon, when the caverns 
were full of the breath of the storm. His manner to her 
seemed as a significant prelude, heralding the deep utterance 
of some human epic. 

Fulviac took the girl by a winding stair leading from the 
guard-room — a stair that circled upwards in the thickness 
of the rock some hundred steps or more, and opened into a 
basin-shaped pit on the plateau above. Dwarf trees and 
briars domed the hollow, giving vision of a grey and hurry- 
ing sky. The pair climbed a second stair that led to a rock 
perched like a pulpit on the margin of the southern preci- 
pice. The wind swept gusty and tempestuous over the 
cliff. It tossed back the girl’s hood, made her stagger; she 
would have fallen had not Fulviac gripped her arm. 

Below stretched an interminable waste of trees, of bow- 
ing pine-tops, and dishevelled boughs. The dull green of the 
forest merged into the grey of the cloud-strewn sky. On 
either hand the craggy bulwarks of the cliffs stretched east 
and west, its natural bartisans and battlements topped by a 
cornice of mysterious pines. It was a superb scene, rich 
with a wild liberty, stirred by the wizard chanting of the 
wind. 


LOFE AMONG THE RUINS 


43 


Fulviac watched the girl as she stood limned against the 
grey curtain of the sky. Her hair blew about her white 
throat and shoulders in sombre streams ; her eyes were very 
bright under their dusky lashes ; and the wind had kissed a 
stronger colour into her cheeks. She was clad in a kirtle 
of laurel-green cloth, bound about the waist with a girdle 
of silver. A white kerchief lay like snow over her shoulders 
and bosom ; her green sleeves were slashed and puffed with 
crimson. 

‘‘ Wild country,” he said, looking in her eyes. 

“ Wild as the sea.” 

“You are a romanticist.” 

She gave a curt laugh. 

“ After what I have suffered ! ” 

“ Romance and sorrow go hand in hand. For the mo- 
ment my words are more material. You see this cliff? ” 

She turned to him and stood watching his face. 

“ This cliff is the core of a kingdom. A granite wedge 
to hurl feudalism to ruins, to topple tyranny.” 

She nodded slowly, with a grave self-reservation. 

“You have hinted that you are ambitious,” she said. 

“ Ambition would have stormed heaven.” 

“ And your ladder ? ” 

The man made a strong gesture, like one who points a 
squadron to the charge. His eyes shone with a glint of 
grimness under his shaggy brows. 

“ The rabid discontent of the poor, fermenting ever under 
the crust of custom. The hate of the toiler for the fop 
and the fool. The iron that lies under the rusting injus- 
tice of riches. The storm-cry of a people’s vengeance 
against the tyrant and the torturer.” 

Yeoland, solemn of face, groped diligently amid her 
surmises. The man was a visionary by his own showing ; 
it was impossible to mistake him for a fool. Like all 
beings of uncommon power, he combined imagination 
with that huge vigour of mind that moves the world. A 
vast element of strength lay coiled in him, subtle, yet over- 


44 


LOFE AMONG THE RUINS 


powering as the body of some great reptileo The girl felt 
the gradual magic of his might mesmerising her with the 
inevitableness of its approach. 

‘‘ You have brought me here ? ’’ she asked him, 

“As I promised.” 

“ Well ? ” 

“To tell you something of the truth.” 

She looked at him with a penetrating frankness that was 
in spirit — laudatory. 

“ You put great trust in me,” she said. 

“ That I may trust the more.” 

He sat himself down on a ledge of rock, and proceeded 
to parade before her imagination such visions as were well 
conceived to daze the reason of a girl taken fresh from a 
forest hermitage. He spoke of riot, revolution, and re- 
venge ; painted Utopias established beneath the benediction 
of a just personal tyranny, a country purged of oppression, 
a kingdom cleansed of pride. He told of arms stored in the 
warrens of the clifF, of grain and salted meat sufficient for an 
army. He pointed out the vast strength of the place, the pla- 
teau approachable only by the stairway in the cliff, and the 
narrow causeway towards the west. He described it as 
sufficient for the gathering and massing of a great host. 
Finally, he swept his hand over the leagues of forestland, 
dark as the sea, isleting the place from the ken of the 
world. 

“You understand me ? ” he said to her. 

She nodded and waited with closed lips. He gazed at 
the horizon, and spoke in parables. 

“ The King and the nobles are throned upon a pile of 
brushwood. A torch is plunged beneath ; a tempest 
scourges the beacon into a furnace. The kingdom burns.” 

“ Yes ? ” 

“ Consider me no mere visionary ; I have the country at 
my back. For five years the work has gone on in secret. I 
have trusted nothing to chance. It needs a bold man to 
strike at a kingdom. I — Fulviac, am that man.” 


VII 


The free city of Gilderoy climbed red-roofed up a rocky 
hill, a hill looped south-east and west by the blue breadth 
of the river Tamar. Its castle, coroneting the central 
rock, smote into the azure, a sheaf of glistening towers 
and turrets, vaned with gold. Lower still, the cathedral’s 
sable crown brooded above a myriad red-tiled roofs and 
wooden gables. Many fair gardens blazoned the higher 
slopes of the city. Tall walls of grey stone ringed round 
the whole, grim and quaint with bartisan and turret. To 
the north, green meadows dipped to the billowy distance 
of the woods. The silver streak of the sea could be 
seen southwards from the platforms of the castle. 

Gilderoy was a rich city and a populous, turbulent 
withal, holding honourable charters from the King, 
exceeding proud of its own freedom. Its Guilds were the 
wealthiest in all the south ; the coffers of its Commune 
overflowed with gold. Nowhere was fairer cloth woven 
than in Gilderoy. Nowhere could be found more cun- 
ning smiths, more subtle armourers. The mansions 
of its rich merchant folk were wondrous opulent and 
great, bedight with goodly tapestry and all manner of rare 
furniture. Painters had gathered to it from the far south ; 
its courtezans were the joy of the whole kingdom. 

Two days after his confessions on the cliff, Fulviac 
took horse, mounted Yeoland on a white palfrey, and 
rode for Gilderoy through the forest. The man was 
upholstered as a merchant, in a plum-coloured cloak, a 
cap of sables, and a Venetian mail cape. Yeoland wore 
a light blue jupon edged with silver, a green kirtle, a 

45 


46 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


cloak of brocaded Tartarin. She rode beside the man, 
demure as a daughter, her bridle of scarlet leather merry 
with silver bells. Two armed servants and some six 
packhorses completed the cavalcade. 

Fulviac had fallen into one of his silent moods that day. 
He was saturnine and enigmatic as though immersed in 
thought. The girl won nothing from him as to the pur- 
pose of their ride. They were for Gilderoy ; thus much 
he vouchsafed her, and no more. She had a shrewd belief 
that he was for giving her tangible evidence of the hazard- 
ous schemes that were fermenting under the surface of 
silence, and that she was to learn more of the tempest 
that was gathering in the dark. Being tactful in her 
generation, she asked him no questions, and kept her con- 
jectures to herself. 

They broke their ride to pass the night at a wayside 
hostelry, where the road from Gambrevault skirted the 
forest. Holding on at their good leisure on the following 
day, they entered Gilderoy by the northern gate, towards 
evening, with the cathedral bell booming a challenge to 
the distant sea. Crossing the great square with its tall 
mansions of carved oak and chiselled stone, they plunged 
into a narrow highway that curled downhill under a 
hundred overhanging gables. Set back in a murky 
court, a tavern hung out its gilded sign over the cobbles, 
a Golden Leopard, that groaned in the wind on its rusty 
hinges. The inn’s casements glowed red under the gloom 
of roof and bracket. Fulviac rode into its stone-paved 
court with its balustraded gallery, its carved stairways, 
its creaking lamps swaying under the high-peaked 
gables. 

Their horses were taken by a lean groom, blessed with 
a most malevolent squint. On the lower step of the gal- 
lery stair stood a rotund little man, with a bunch of keys 
reposing on his stomach, the light from a lantern overhead 
shining on his bald pate, as on a half sphere of alabaster. 
He seemed to sweat beef and beer at every pore. Shuffling 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


47 


his feet, he tilted his double chin to the sky, as though he 
were conducting a monologue under the stars. 

“ No brew yet,” he hummed in a high falsetto, throaty 
and puling from so ponderous a carcase. 

Fulviac set one foot on the stairs. 

“ St. Prospers wine, fat Jean,” he said. 

The rotund soul turned his face suddenly earthwards, 
as though he had been jerked down by one leg out of 
heaven. 

“ Ah, sire, it is you.” 

“ Who else ? What of the good folk of Gilderoy ? ” 

‘‘ Packed like a crowd of rats in a drain. Will your 
honour sup ” 

The man stood aside with a great sweep of the hand, 
and a garlic-ladened breath given full in Yeoland’s face. 

“ And the lady, sire, a cup of purple ; the roads are dry ? ” 

Fulviac pushed up the stairs. 

“We are late, and supped as we came. Your private 
cellar will suit us better.” 

“ Of a truth, sire, most certainly.” 

“Send the men back with the horses; Damian has his 
orders, and your money-bag.” 

“ Rely on my dispatch, sire.” 

“ Well, then, roll on.” 

Fat Jean, sweaty deity of pot and gridiron, took the keys 
from his girdle and a lantern from a niche in the wall. 
Going at a wheezy shuffle, he led them by a long passage 
and two circles of stairs to a cellar packed with hogsheads, 
tuns, and great vats of copper. From the first cellar a 
second opened, from the second, a third. In the last vault 
Jean rolled a cask from a corner, turned a flagstone on its 
side, showed them a narrow stairway descending into the 
dark. 

Fulviac took the lantern, made a sign to Jean, and passed 
down the stairway with Yeoland at his heels. The tavern- 
keeper remained above in the cellar, and closed the stone 
when the last gleam of the light had died down the stair. 


48 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


He rolled the cask back into its place, and felt his way 
back by cellar and stairway to the benignant glow of his 
own tavern room. 

Fulviac and the girl had descended the black well of the 
stair. Tunnels of gloom ran labyrinthine on every hand; 
a musty scent burdened the air, and fine sand covered the 
floor. Fulviac held the lantern shoulder-high, took Yeo- 
land’s wrist, and moved forward into a great gallery that 
sloped downwards into the depths of the rock. The place 
was silent as the death-chamber of a pyramid. The lantern 
fashioned fantastic shadows from the gloom. 

Yeoland held close to the man with an instinct towards 
trust that made her smile at her own thoughts. Fulviac 
had been in her life little more than a week; yet his 
unequivocating strength had won largely upon her liking — 
in no sentimental sense indeed, but rather with the calm 
command of power. Possibly she feared him a very little. 
Yet with the despair of a wrecked mariner she clung to 
him, in spirit, as she would have clung to a rock. 

As they passed down the gallery with the lantern swing- 
ing in Fulviac’s hand, she began to question him with a 
quiet persistence. 

“What place is this ? ” she said. 

For retort, Fulviac pointed her to the wall, and held the 
lantern to aid her scrutiny. The girl saw numberless 
recesses excavated in the rock ; some had been bricked up 
and bore tablets ; others were packed with grinning skulls. 
There were scattered paintings on the walls, symbolic 
daubs, or scenes from scriptural history. The place was 
meaningless to the girl, save that the dead seemed ever 
with them. 

Fulviac smiled at her solemn face. 

“ The catacombs of the city of Gilderoy,” he said ; “ yon- 
der are the niches of the dead. These paintings were 
made by early folk, centuries ago. A veritable maze this, 
a gallery of skulls, a warren for ghosts to squeak in.” 

Yeoland had turned to scan a tablet on the wall. 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


49 


“We go to some secret gathering ? ” she asked. 

Fulviac laughed; the sound echoed through the passages 
with reverberating scorn. 

“ The same dark fable,” he said, “ telling of vaults and 
secrej stairs, passwords and poniards, masks and murder. 
Remember, little sister, you are to be black and subtle to 
the heart’s chords. This is life, not a romance or an Ital- 
ian fable. We are men here. There is to be no strutting 
on the stage.” 

The girl loitered a moment, as though her feet kept pace 
with her cogitations. 

“ I am content,” she said, “ provided I may eschew poi- 
son, nor need run a bodkin under some wretch’s ribs.” 

“ Be at peace on that score. I have not the heart to 
make a Rosamund of you.” 

Sudden out of a dark bye-passage, like a rat out of a 
hole, a man sprang at them and held a knife at Fulviac’s 
throat. The mock merchant gave the password with great 
unconcern, putting his cap of sables back from off his face. 
The sentinel crossed himself, fell on one knee, and gave 
them passage. Turning a bluff buttress of stone, they 
came abruptly upon a short gallery that widened into a 
great circular chamber, pillared after the manner of a church. 

A flare of torches harassed the shadowy vault, and played 
upon a thousand upturned faces that seemed to surge wave 
on wave out of the gloom. In the centre of the crypt 
stood an altar of black marble, and before it on the dais, 
a priest with a cowl down, a rough wooden crucifix in his 
hand. A knot of men in armour gleamed about the altar, 
ringing a clear space about the steps. Others, with drawn 
swords, kept the entries of the galleries leading to the cav- 
ern. A great quiet hung over the place, a silence solid as 
the rock above. 

A group of armed men waited for Fulviac at the main 
entry to -the crypt. He merged into their ranks, exchang- 
ing signs and words in an undertone with one who seemed 
in authority. The ring of figures pressed through the 


50 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


crowd towards the altar, Fulviac and Yeoland in their 
midst. Fulviac mounted the steps, and drew the girl up 
beside him. He uncovered his face to the mob with the 
gesture of a king uncovering to his people. 

“ Fulviac, Fulviac ! ” 

The press swayed suddenly like the black waters of a 
lake, stirred by the rush of flood water through a broken 
dam. The ring of armed men gave up the shout with a 
sweeping of swords and a clangour of harness. The great 
cavern took up the cry, reverberating it from its thundering 
vault. A thousand hands were thrust up, as of the dead 
rising from the sea. 

Yeoland watched the man’s face with a mute kindling 
of enthusiasm. As she gazed, it beaconed forth a new 
dignity to her that she had never seen thereon before. A 
sudden grandeur of strength glowed from its weather-beaten 
features. The mouth and jaw seemed of iron ; the eyes 
were full of a stormy fire. It was the face of a man trans- 
figured, throned above himself on the burning pinnacle of 
power. He towered above the mob like some granite god, 
colossal in strength, colossal in courage. His manhood 
flamed out, a watch-fire to the world. 

As the cry dwindled, the priest, who still kept his cowl 
down over his face, held his crucifix on high, and broke 
into the strident cadence of a rebel ballad. The people 
followed as by instinct, knowing the song of old. Many 
hundred voices gathered strenuously into the flood, the 
massed roar rolling through the great crypt, echoing along 
the galleries like the sound of some subterranean stream. 
It was a deep chant and a stirring, strong with the strength 
of the storm wind, fanatic as the sea. 

The silence that fell at the end thereof was the more 
solemn in contrast to the thundering stanzas of the hymn. 
Under the flare of the torches, Fulviac stood forward to 
turn the task from the crucifix to the sword. 

Men of Gilderoy.” 

A billow of cheering dashed again to the roof. 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


51 


“ Fulviac, Fulviac ! ” 

The man suffered the cry to die into utter silence, be- 
fore leaping into a riot of words, a harangue that had more 
justification in it than appeal. His voice filled the cavern 
with^its volume and depth. It was more the voice of a 
captain thundering commands to a squadron of horse than 
the declamatory craft of the orator. Fulviac knew the 
mob, that they were rough and turbulent, and loved a 
demagogue. Scholastic subtleties could never fill their 
stomachs. 

“ Men of Gilderoy, I come to you with the sword. 
Bombast, bombast, come hither all, Fll laden ye with 
devilry, puff you up with pride. Ha, who is for being 
strong, who for being master ? Listen to me. Damna- 
tion and death, I have the kingdom in the palm of my 
hand. Liberty, liberty, liberty. We strike for the people. 
Geraint is ours ; Gore is ours ; all the southern coast 
waits for the beacons. Malgo of the Mountain holds the 
west like a storm cloud under his cloak. The east raves 
against the King. Good. Who is for the stronger side, 
for Fulviac, liberty, and the people } ” 

He halted a moment, took breath, quieted all clamour 
with a sweep of the hand, plunged on again like a great 
carrack buffeting tall billows. • 

“ Are there spies here ? By God, let them listen well, 
and save their skins. Go and tell what ye have heard. 
Set torch to tinder. Blood and fire, the country would 
be in arms before the King could stir. No, no, there are 
no spies in Gilderoy ; we are all brothers here. By my 
sword, sirs, I swear to you, that before harvest tide, we 
shall sweep the nobles into the sea.” 

A great shout eddied up to answer him. Fulviac’s 
voice pierced it like a trumpet cry. 

“ Liberty, liberty, and the people ! ” 

Sound can intoxicate as well as wine. The thunder of 
war, the bray of clarions, can fire even the heart of the 
coward. The mob swirled about the altar of black marble, 


52 


LOVJS AMONG THE RUINS 


vociferous and eager. Torches rocked to and fro in the 
cavern ; shadows leapt grotesquely gigantic over the rough 
groinings of the roof. Yet Fulviac had further and fiercer 
fuel for the fire. At a sign from him, the circle of armed 
men parted ; two peasants stumbled forward bearing a 
cripple in their arms. They carried him up the steps and 
set him upon the altar before all the people, supporting 
him as he stared round upon the sea of faces. 

He was a shrivelled being, yellow, black of eye, cadaver- 
ous. He looked like a man who had wallowed for years 
among toads in a pit, and had become as one of them. 
His voice was cracked and querulous, as he brandished 
a claw of a hand and screamed at the crowd. 

“ Look at me, mates and brothers. Five years ago I 
was a tall man and lusty. I forbade the Lord of Margradel 
my wife. They racked and branded me, tossed me into a 
stinking pit. I am young, young. I shall never walk 
again.” 

A woman rushed from the crowd, grey-haired, fat, and 
bloated. She climbed the altar steps, and stretched out her 
hands in a kind of frenzy towards the people. 

“ Look at me, men of Gilderoy. Last spring I had a 
daughter, a clean wench as ever danced. Seek her from 
John of Brissac and his devils. Ha, good words these for 
a mother. Men of Gilderoy, remember your children.” 

Fulviac’s pageant gathered grimly before the mob. A 
blind man tottered up and pointed to his sightless eyes. 
A girl held up an infant, and told shrilly of its father’s 
murder. One fellow displayed a tongueless mouth ; an- 
other, a face distorted by the iron j a third had lost nose 
and ears ; a fourth showed arms shrivelled and contracted 
by fire. It was a sinister appeal, strong yet piteous. The 
tyranny of the age showed in the bodies of these wronged 
and mutilated beings. They had been mere carrion tossed 
under the iron heel of power. The granite car of ruthless 
opulence and passion had crushed them under its reddened 
wheels. 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


53 


At a gesture from Fulviac, the priest upon the steps 
threw back his cowl and stood forward in the torchlight. 
His face was the face of a zealot, fanatical, sanguine, 
lined yiih an energy that was prophetic of power. His 
eyes smouldered under their straight black brows. His 
hands, white and bony, quivered as he stretched them out 
towards the people. 

They knew him on the instant ; their clamour told as 
much. Often had the shadow of that thin figure fallen 
athwart the parched highways of stricken cities. Often 
had those hands tended death, those lips smitten awe into 
the souls of the drunkard and the harlot. 

“ Prosper, Prosper the Preacher ! ” 

There rang a rude, rough joy in the clamour that was 
spontaneous and eloquent. It was the heart’s cry of the peo- 
ple, wild, trusting, and passionate. Men and women broke 
through the circle of armed men, cast themselves upon the 
altar steps, kissed the friar’s gown, and fawned on him. 
He put them back with a certain awkward dignity, and a 
hot colour upon his almost boyish face. The man had a 
fine humility, though the strenuous ideals of his soul ran in 
fire to the zenith. 

Anon he signed a benediction, and a hush descended on 
the place. 

“ God’s peace to you, people of Gilderoy ! ” 

The clamour revived. 

“ Preach to us, preach to us ! ” came the cry. 

The friar stretched forth his hands; his voice rang 
strong and strident over the packed upturned faces. 

“Children, what need have we of words! To-night 
have we not seen enough to scourge the manhood in us, 
to bear forth the Holy Cross of war ? The evil beast is 
with us even yet ; Mammon the Mighty treads you under 
foot. Ye saints, what cause more righteous since the 
martyrs fell ? Look on these scars, these wrongs, these 
agonies. Preach I I am dumb beside such witnesses as 
these.” 


54 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


The crypt thundered to him when he lowered his hands. 
It was the cry of men bankrupt of liberty, thirsty for 
revenge. Fulviac grappled the climax, and stood forward 
with uplifted sword. His lion’s roar sounded above the 
din. 

“ Go, people of Gilderoy,” he cried, “ go — but remem- 
ber. When castles burn, and bolts scream, when spears 
splinter, and armies crash to the charge, remember your 
children and your wrongs. Strike home for God, and for 
your liberty.” 


VIII 


The crowd had streamed from the cavern, swirling like 
black water under the tossing torches, the hollow galleries 
reverberating to the rush of many feet. Prosper had gone, 
borne away by the seditious captains of the Commune and 
the armed burghers who had guarded the entries. A great 
silence had fallen upon the crypt. Fulviac and the girl 
were left by the altar of black marble, their one lamp burn- 
ing solitary in the gulf of gloom. 

Fulviac had the air of a man whose favourite hawk had 
flown with fettle, and brought her quarry tumbling out of 
the clouds. He was warm with the zest of it, and his 
tawny eyes sparkled. 

“ May the Virgin smile on us ! ” he said. “ Gilderoy 
will serve our ends.” 

The girl’s eyes searched him gravely. 

“ You make holy war,” she charged him. 

“ Ha, my sister, it is well to profess a strong conviction 
in the justice of one’s cause. Tell men they are heroes, 
patriots, martyrs, and you will make good fighting stuff. 
Applaud fanaticism, make great parade of righteousness, 
hail the Deity as patron, assemble all the saints under your 
banner. Ha, trust me, that is a way to topple a kingdom. 
Come, we must stir.” 

By many labyrinthine passages, strange galleries of death, 
they passed together from the dark deeps of the catacombs. 
At one point the roof shone silvered as with dew, and the 
air stood damp as in a marsh on a winter’s eve. The river 
Tamar flowed above them in its rocky bed, so Fulviac told 
the girl. Anon they came out by a narrow stair that 

55 


56 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


opened by a briar-grown throat into a thicket of old oaks 
in the Gilderoy meadows. The stairhead was covered by 
a species of stone trap that could be covered and con- 
cealed by sods. In the thicket a man awaited them with 
the bridles of three horses over his arm. Fulviac held 
Yeoland’s stirrup, and they rode out, the three of them, 
from under the trees. 

A full moon swam in a purple black sky amid a shower 
of shimmering stars. Gilderoy, with its climbing towers 
and turrets, stood out white under the moon. The city 
walls gleamed like alabaster in the magic glow. In the 
meadows the ringlets of the river glimmered. Far and 
distant rose the nebulous midnight of the woods. 

Fulviac had bared his head to an inconstant and torpid 
breeze. They were riding for the west along a bridle track 
that curled grey and dim through the sombre meadows. 
The calm, soundless vault of the world rose now in con- 
trast to the canopies of stone and the passion-throes of the 
catacombs. Human moil and effort seemed infinitely little 
under the eternal scrutiny of the stars. So thought the 
man for the moment, as he rode with his chin sunk upon 
his breast, watching keenly the girl at his side. 

Yeoland was young. All the roses of youth were bud- 
ding about her soul ; idealism, like the essence of crushed 
violets, hovered heavy over the world. Her soul as yet 
was no frayed and listless lute, thrummed into discords by 
the bony hand of care. She was built for love, a temple 
of white marble, lit by lamps of rubeous glory. Colours 
flashed through the red sanctuaries of the flesh. Yet pain 
and great woe had smitten her. The grim destinies of 
earth seemed bent on thrusting an innocent pilgrim into 
the turbulent contradictions of life. 

The pageant in the catacombs that night had stirred her 
strangely beyond belief. The fantastic faces, the zeal, the 
hot words of gesturing enthusiasm, these were things new 
to her, therefore the more vivid and convincing. New 
worlds, new passions, seemed to burst into being under the 


£0F£ AMONG THE RUINS 


57 


stars. She was utterly silent as she rode, looking forth 
into the night. Her hood had fallen back ; her face shone 
white and clear; her eyes gleamed in the moonlight. Ful- 
viac, like a chess-player who had evolved some subtle 
scheme, rode and watched her with a smile deep in his 
eyes. For the moment he was content to leave her to the 
magic of her own thoughts. 

At certain rare seasons in life, virgin light floods down 
into the heart, as from some oriel opened in heaven. The 
world stands under a grander scheme of chiaroscuro ; men 
comprehend where they once scoffed. It was thus that 
Yeoland rose inspired, like a spiritual Venus from a sea of 
dreams. As molten glass is shaped speedily into fair and 
exquisite device, so the red wax of her heart had taken the 
impress of the hour. Gilderoy had stirred her like a 
blazoned page of romance. 

Fulviac caught the girl’s half glance at him; read in 
measure the meaning of her mood. Her lips were half 
parted as though she had words upon her tongue, but still 
hesitated from some scruple of pride. He straightened in 
the saddle, and waited for her to unbosom to him with a 
confident reserve. 

‘‘ Well ? ” he said at length, since she still lingered in her 
silence. 

“ How much one may learn in a day,” she answered, 
drawing her white palfrey nearer to his horse. 

Fulviac agreed with her. 

“ The man on the end of the rope,” he said, “ learns in 
two minutes that which has puzzled philosophers since 
Adam loved Eve.” 

She turned to him with an eagerness that was almost 
passionate even in its suppressed vigour. 

“ How long; was it before you came to pity your 
fellows?” 

‘‘ Some minutes, not more.” 

“ And the conversion ? ” 

“Shall satisfy you one day. For the present I will 


58 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


buckle up so unsavoury a fable in my bosom. Tell me 
what you have learnt at Gilderoy.” 

Yeoland looked at the moon. The man saw great sad- 
ness upon her face, but also an inspired radiance that made 
its very beauty the more remarkable. He foresaw in an 
instant that they were coming to deeper matters. Super- 
ficialities, the mannerisms of life, were falling away. The 
girPs heart beat near to his ; he felt a luminous sympathy 
of spirit rise round them like the gold of a Byzantine back- 
ground. 

“ Come,” he said, with a burst of beneficence, “ you are 
beginning to understand me.” 

She jerked a swift glance at him, like the look of a half- 
tamed falcon. 

“You are a man, for all your sneers and vapourings.” 

“ I had a heart once. Call me an oak, broken, twisted, 
aged, but an oak still.” 

Yeoland drew quite close to him, so that her skirt almost 
brushed his horse’s flank. Fulviac’s shadow fell athwart 
her. Only her face shone clear in the moonlight. 

“ I have ceased,” she said, “ to look upon life as a stretch 
of blue, a laughing dawn.” 

“ Good.” 

“I have learnt that woe is the crown of years.” 

“ Good again.” 

“ That life is full of violence and wrong.” 

“ A platitude. Yes. Life consists in learning platitudes.” 

“ I am only one woman among thousands.” 

“ A revelation.” 

“ You jeer.” 

“ Not so. Few women learn the truth of your proverb.” 

“ Lastly, my trouble is not the only woe in the world. 
That it is an error to close up grief in the casket of 
self.” 

Fulviac flapped his bridle, and looked far ahead into the 
cavern of the night. He was silent awhile in thought. 
When he spoke again, he delivered himself of certain curt 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


59 


cogitations, characteristic confessions that were wholly 
logical. 

“ I am a selfish vagabond,” he said ; “ I appeal to Peter’s 
keys whether all ambition is not selfish. I am an egotist 
for the good of others. The stronger my ambition, the 
stronger the hope of the land in generous justice. I live 
to rule, to rule magnanimously, yet with an iron sceptre. 
There, you have my creed.” 

“ And God ? ” she asked him. 

“ Is a most useful subordinate.” 

“ You do not mean that ? ” 

‘‘ I do not.” 

She saw again the mutilated beings in the catacombs, 
aye, even her own home flaming to the sky, and the white 
face of her dead father. Faith and devotion were great 
in her for the moment. Divine vengeance beaconed over 
the world, a torch borne aloft by the hand of Pity. 

“ It is God’s war,” she said to him with a finer solemnity 
sounding in her voice ; “ you have stirred the woman in 
me. Is that enough ? ” 

“ Enough,” he answered her. 

“ And the rest ? ” 

“ God shall make all plain in due season.” 

Gilderoy had dwindled into the east ; its castle’s towers 
still netted the moonlight from afar. The meadowlands 
had ceased, and trees strode down in multitudes to guard 
the track. The night was still and calm, with a whisper 
of frost in the crisp, sparkling air. The world seemed 
roofed with a dome of dusky steel. 

Before them a shallow valley lay white in the light of 
the moon. Around climbed the glimmering turrets of the 
trees, rank on rank, solemn and tumultuous. The bare 
gable ends of a ruined chapel rose in the valley. Fulviac 
drew aside by a bridle path that ran amid rushes. To the 
left, from the broken wall of the curtilage, a great beech 
wood ascended, its boughs black against the sky, its floor 
ankle- deep with fallen leaves. The chapel stood roofless 


6o 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


under the moon. Hollies, a sable barrier that glistened in 
the moonlight, closed the ruin on the south. Yews cast 
their gloom about the walls. A tall cross in the forsaken 
graveyard stretched out its mossy arms east and west. 

The armed groom took the horses and tethered them 
under a clump of pines by the wall. Fulviac and the girl 
Yeoland passed up through weeds and brambles to the 
porch. A great briar rose had tangled the opening with a 
thorny web, as though to hold the ruin from the hand of 
man. The tiled floor was choked with grass ; a rickety door 
drooped rotten on its rusty hinges. 

Fulviac pushed through and beckoned the girl to follow. 
Within, all was ruinous and desolate, the roof fallen, the 
casements broken. 

“We must find harbour here,” said the man, “ our horses 
go far to-morrow.” 

“ A cheerful hostel, this.” 

“ Its wildness makes it safe. You fear the cold. Fll 
see to that.” 

“ No. I am hungry.” 

The high altar still stood below the small rose window 
in the east, where the rotting fragments of a triptych hid 
the stonework. There was a great carved screen of stone 
on either side, curiously recessed as though giving access to 
an ambulatory. The altar stood in dense shadow, with 
broken timber and a tangle of briars ringing a barrier about 
its steps. On the southern side of the nave, a patch of 
tiled flooring still stood riftless, closed in by two fallen 
pillars. The groom came in with two horse-cloaks, and 
Fulviac spread them on the tiles. He also gave her a small 
flask of wine, and a silver pyx holding meat and bread. 

“We crusaders must not grumble at the rough lodging,” 
he said to her ; “ wrap yourself in these cloaks, and play the 
Jacob with a stone pillow.” 

She smiled slightly in her eyes. The groom brought in 
a saddle, ranged it with a saddle cloth covering it, that it 
might rest her head. 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


6i 


“ And you ? ” she said to Fulviac. 

“ Damian and I hold the porch.” 

“You will be cold.” 

“ I have a thick hide. The Lady of Geraint give you 
good rest ! ” 

He threaded his way out amid the fallen stones and 
pillars, and closed the rickety gate. The groom, a tall 
fellow in a battered bassinet and a frayed brigantine, stood 
by the yew trees, as on guard. Fulviac gestured to him. 
The man moved away towards the eastern end of the 
chapel, where laurels grew thick and lusty about the walls. 
When he returned Fulviac was sitting hunched on a fallen 
stone in the corner of the porch, as though for sleep. The 
man dropped a guttural message into his master’s ear, and 
propped himself in the other angle of the porch. 

An hour passed ; the moon swam past the zenith towards 
the west ; a vast quiet watched over the world, and no 
wind rippled in the woods. In the sky the stars shivered, 
and gathered more closely their silver robes. In the curti- 
lage the ruined tombs stared white and desolate at the 
moon. 

An owl’s cry sounded in the woods. Sudden and strange, 
as though dropped from the stars, faint music quivered on 
the frost-brilliant air. It gathered, died, grew again, with a 
mysterious flux of sweetness, as of some song stealing from 
the Gardens of the Dead. Flute, cithern, and viol were 
sounding under the moon, merging a wizard chant into the 
magic of the hour. Angels, crimson-winged, in green 
attire, seemed to descend the burning stair of heaven. 

A sudden great radiance lit the ruin, a glory of gold 
streaming from the altar. Cymbals clashed ; waves of 
shimmering light surged over the broken walls. Incense, 
like purple smoke, curled through the casements. The 
music rushed in clamorous rapture to the stars. A voice 
was heard crying in the chapel, elfin and wild, yet full of a 
vague rich sanctity. It ceased sudden as the brief moan of a 
prophecy. The golden glow elapsed j the music sank to 


62 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


silence. Nought save the moonlight poured in silver omnip- 
otence over the ruin. 

From the chapel came the sound of stumbling footsteps 
amid the stones. A hand clutched at the rotting door, 
jerked it open, as in terror. The girl Yeoland came out 
into the porch, and stood swaying white-faced in the 
shadow. 

“ Fulviac.” 

Her voice was hoarse and whispering, strained as the 
overwrought strings of a lute. The man did not stir. She 
bent down, dragged at his cloak, calling to him with a quick 
and gathering vehemence. He shook himself, as from the 
thongs of sleep, stood up and stared at her. The groom 
still crouched in the dark corner. 

“ Fulviac.” 

She thrust her way through the briars into the moon- 
light. Her hood had fallen back, her hair loose upon her 
shoulders ; her eyes were full of a supernatural stupor, and 
she seemed under the spell of some great shock of awe. 
She trembled so greatly, that Fulviac followed her, and held 
her arm. 

“ Speak. What has chanced to you ? ” 

She still shook like some flower breathed upon by the 
oracular voice of God. Her hands were torn and bloody 
from the thorns. 

“ The Virgin has appeared to me.” 

“ Are you mad ? ” 

“ The Virgin.” 

“ Some ghost or phantom.” 

“ No, no, hear me.” 

She stretched out her hands like one smitten blind, and 
took breath swiftly in sudden gasps. 

Hear me, I was but asleep, woke, and heard music. 
The Virgin came out upon the altar, her face like the 
moon, her robes white as the stars. There was great light, 
great glory. And she spoke to me. Mother of God, what 
am I that I should be chosen thus ! ” 


LOFE AMONG THE RUINS 


63 


“ Speak. Can this be true ? ” 

‘‘ The truth, the truth ! 

Fulviac fell on his knees with a great gesture of awe. 
The girl, her face turned to the moon, stood quivering 
like a reed, her lips moving as if in prayer. 

“ Her message, child ? ” 

“ Ah, it was this : ‘ Go forth a virgin, and lead the hosts 
of the Lord.’ ” 

Fulviac’s face was in shadow. He thrust up his hands 
to the heavens, but would not so much as glance at the 
girl above him. His voice rang out in the silence of the 
night : — 

“ Gloria tibi, Sancta Maria ! Gloria tibi, Domine ! ” 


IX 


Faith, golden crown of the Christian ! Self-mesmerism, 
subtle alchemy of the mind ! How the balance of belief 
swings between these twain ! 

A spiritual conception born in a woman’s brain is as a 
savour of rich spices sweetening all the world. How great 
a power of obstinacy stirs in one small body ! A pillar of 
fire, a shining grail. She will bring forth the finest gems 
that hang upon her bosom, the ruby of heroism, the sap- 
phire of pity. She will cast all her store of gold into the 
lap of Fate. Give to her some radiant dream of hope, and 
she may prove the most splendid idealist, even if she do 
not prove a wise one. Remember the women who watched 
about the Cross of Christ. 

There had been trickery in the miracle, a tinge of flesh 
in the vision. The Virgin, in the ruck of religion, had 
suffered herself to be personated by a clever little “ player ” 
from Gilderoy, aided and idealised by a certain notorious 
charlatan who dealt in magic, was not above aiding ecclesi- 
astical mummeries on occasions, and conspiring for the 
solemn production of miracles. A priest’s juggling box, 
a secret door at the back of the altar used in bygone days 
for the manipulation of a wonder-working image, musicians, 
incense, and Greek fire. These had made the portent pos- 
sible. As for Fulviac, rugged plotter, he was as grave as 
an abbot over the business ; his words were wondrous bea- 
tific ; he spoke of the interventions of Heaven with bated 
breath. 

It was a superstitious age, touched with phantasy and 
gemmed with magic. Relics were casketed in gold and 

64 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


65 


silver; holy blood amazed with yearly liquefactions the 
souls of the devout ; dreamers gazed into mirrors, crys- 
tals, finger-nails, for visions of heaven. Jewels were 
poured in scintillant streams at the white feet of the 
Madonna. It was all done with rare mysticism, colour, 
and rich music. The moon ruled marriage, corn, and 
kine. The saints, like a concourse of angels, walked 
with melancholy splendour through the wilds. 

As for the girl Yeoland, she had the heart of a woman 
in the noblest measure, a red heart, pure yet passionate. 
The world waxed prophetic that shrill season. She was 
as full of dreams and phantasies as an astrologer’s missal. 
Nothing amazed her, and yet all earth was mysterious. 
The wind spoke in magic syllables ; the trees were 
oracular ; the stars, white hands tracing symbols in the 
sky. She was borne above herself on the pinions of 
ecstasy, heard seraph wings sweep the air, saw the 
glimmer of their robes passing the portals of the night. 
Mysticism moved through the world like the sound of 
lutes over a moonlit sea. 

One March morning, Fulviac came to her in the 
northern chamber of the clilF. Yeoland had masses of 
scarlet cloth and threads of gold upon her knees, for she 
was broidering a banner, the banner of the Maid of 
Gilderoy. Her eyes were full of violet shadow. She 
wore a cross over her bosom, emeralds set in silver; a 
rosary, dangling on her wrist, told how her prayers kept 
alternate rhythm with her fingers. Fulviac crooked the 
knee to the crucifix upon the wall, sat down near her on 
a rich bench of carved cedar wood. 

The man was in a beneficent mood, and beamed on 
her like a lusty summer. He had tidings on his tongue, 
tidings that he hoarded with the craft of an epicure. It 
was easy to mark when the world trundled well with his 
humour. He put forth smiles like a great oak whose 
boughs glisten in the sun. 

“ You will tire yourself, little sister.” 


66 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


She looked at him with one of her solemn glances, a 
glance that spoke of vigils, soul-searchings, and prayer. 

“ My fingers tire before my heart,” she said to him. 

“ Rest, rest.” 

‘‘ Do I seem weary to you ? ” 

“Nay, you are fresh as the dawn.” 

He brushed back the tawny hair from off his forehead, 
and the lines about his mouth softened. 

“ I have news from the west.” 

“ Ah ! ” 

“ We gather and spread like fire in a forest. The 
mountain men are with us, ready to roll down from the 
hills with hauberk and sword. In two months Malgo 
will have sent the bloody cross through all the west.” 

The golden thread ran through the girl’s white fingers ; 
the beads of her rosary rattled j she seemed to be weav- 
ing the destiny of a kingdom into the device upon her 
banner. 

“ How is it with us here ? ” she asked him. 

“ I have a thousand stout men and true camped upon 
the cliff. Levies are coming in fast, like steel to a 
magnet. In a month we shall outbulk a Roman 
legion.” 

“ And Gilderoy ? ” 

“ Gilderoy and Geraint will give us a score thousand 
pikemen.” 

“ The stars fight for us.” 

Fulviac took her lute from the carved bench and began 
to thrum the chords of an old song. 

Spears crash, and swords clang. 

Fame maddens the world. 

Come battle and love. 

Iseult — 

Ah, Iseult.” 

He broke away with a last snap at the strings, and set the 
lute aside. 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


67 


“ Bear with me,” he said. 

Her dark eyes questioned him over her banner. 

“ I offer you the first victim.” 

« Ah ! ” 

‘‘ Flavian of Gambrevault.” 

An indefinite shadow descended upon the girPs face. 
The inspired radiance seemed dimmed for the moment ; 
the crude realism of her thoughts rang in discord to her 
dreams. She lost the glimmering thread from her needle. 
Her hands trembled a little as she played with the scarlet 
folds of the banner. 

“ Well ? ” 

“ A lad of mine bears news — a black-eyed rogue from 
the hills of Carlyath, sharp as a sword’s point, quaint as 
an elf. I sent him gleaning, and he has done bravely. 
You would hear his tale from his own lips ” 

She nodded and seemed distraught. 

“ Yes. Bring him in to me,” she said. 

Fulviac left her, to return with a slim youth sidling in 
behind him like a shadow. The lad had a nut-brown 
skin and ruddy cheeks, a pair of twinkling eyes, a thatch 
of black hair over his forehead. Bred amid the hills of 
Carlyath, where the women were scarlet Eves, and the 
land a paradise, he had served in Gilderoy as apprentice 
to an armourer. Carlyath’s wilds and the city’s roguery 
had mingled in him fantastic strains of extravagant senti- 
ment and cunning. Half urchin, half elf, he stood with 
bent knees and slouched shoulders, his black eyes alert on 
Fulviac, his lord. 

The man thrust him forward by the collar, with an elo- 
quent gesture. 

The whole tale. Try your wit.” 

The Carlyath lad advanced one foot, and with an impu- 
dent southern smirk, remarked — 

“ This, madame, is an infatuated world.” 

Thus, sententiously delivered, he plunged into a decla- 
mation with a picturesque and fanciful extravagance that 


68 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


he had imbibed from the strolling romancers of his own 
land. 

“ In the city of Gilderoy,” he said, speaking very volubly 
and with many gestures, “ there lives a lady of surpassing 
comeliness. Her eyes are as the sky, her cheeks as June 
roses, her hair a web of gold. She is a right fair lady, and 
daily she sits at her broad casement, singing, and plaiting 
her hair into shackles of gold. She has bound the Lord 
Flavian of Gambrevault in a net starred with poppies, scar- 
let poppies of the field, so that he ever dreams dreams of 
scarlet, and sees visions of lips warm as wine. Daily the 
Lord Flavian scours the country between Avalon and the 
fair city of Gilderoy, till the very dust complains of his 
fury, and the green grass curses his horse’s heels. But the 
lady with the hair of gold compasses him like the sunset ; 
she has stolen the eyes of heaven, and the stars are blind.” 

Fulviac smiled over the extreme subtlety of the render- 
ing. It was a delicate matter, delicately handled. The 
Carlyath lad had wit, and a most seraphic tongue. 

“ What more ? ” 

“ There is yet another lady at Avalon.” 

‘‘Well?” 

“ A lady whose name is Duessa, a lady with black hair 
and a blacker temper. Lord Flavian has a huge horror of 
her tongue. Therefore he rides like a thief, without trum- 
pets, to Gilderoy.” 

“ Yet more.” 

The lad spread his hands with an inimitable gesture, 
shrugged, and heaved a most Christian sigh. 

“ The Lady Duessa is the Lord Flavian’s wife,” he said. 

“ Surely.” 

“ Therefore, sire, he is a coward.” 

The lad drew back with a bow and a scrape of the foot, 
keeping his eyes on the floor with the discretion of a vet- 
eran lackey. At a sign from Fulviac, he slipped away, and 
left Yeoland and the man alone. 

The girl’s hands were idle in her lap j the great scarlet 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


69 


banner trailed in rich folds about her feet. There was a 
white mask of thought upon her face, and her eyes searched 
the distance with an oblivious stare. All the strong dis- 
cords of the past rushed clamorous to her brain ; her con- 
secrated dreams were as so many angels startled by the 
assaults of hell. 

She rose from her chair, cast the casement wide, and 
stood gazing over the forest. Youth seemed in the breeze, 
and the clear voice of the Spring. The green woods surged 
with liberty \ the strong zest of life breathed in their bosoms. 
In the distance the pines seemed to beckon to her, to wave 
their caps in windy exultation. 

Fulviac had stood watching her with the calm scrutiny 
of one wise in the passionate workings of the soul. He 
suffered her to possess her thoughts in silence for a season, 
to come by a steady comprehension of the past. Presently 
he gathered the red banner, and hung it on the frame, went 
softly to her and touched her sleeve. 

“ Shall they kill him on the road ? ” he asked. 

She pondered a moment, and did not answer him. 

“ It is easy,’’ he said, “ and a matter of sheer justice.” 

The words seemed to steel her decision. 

“No,” she said, “let them bring him here — to me.” 

“ So be it,” he answered her. 

Fulviac found her cold and taciturn, desirous of solitude. 
He humoured the mood, and she was still staring from the 
window when he left her. The woodland had melted be- 
fore her into an oblivious mist. In its stead she saw a 
tower flaming amid naked trees, a white face staring 
heavenwards with the marble tranquillity of death. 


X 


Down through the woods of Avalon rode the Lord Flavian 
of Gambrevault, down towards the forest track in the grey 
face of the dawn. In the meadows and beyond the orchards, 
water shone, and towers stood mistily. The voice of Spring 
pulsed in the air, songs of green woods, the wild wine of 
violets, pavements of primrose gold. Birds piped lustily in 
wood and thicket, and the ascending sun lavished his glit- 
tering archery from the chariots of the clouds. 

The Lord Flavian was inordinately cheerful that morn- 
ing, as he rode in green and red through the prophetic 
woods. Heart and weather were in kindred keeping, and 
his youth sang like a brook after April rains. The woods 
danced in dew.- Far on its rocky hill the towers of Gilde- 
roy would soon beckon him above the trees. Beneath the 
shadow of the cathedral tower stood a gabled house with 
gilded vanes and roofs of generous red. There in Gilderoy, 
in a room hung with cloth of purple and gold, white arms 
waited, and the bosom of a golden Helen held love like a 
red rose in a pool of milky spikenard. 

Picture a slim but muscular man with the virile figure of 
a young David, a keen, smooth face, a halo of brown hair, 
eyes eloquent as a woman’s. Picture a good grey horse 
trapped in red and green, full of fettle as a colt, burly as a 
bull. Picture the ermined borderings, the jewelled clasps, 
brigantine of quilted velvet, fur-lined bassinet bright as a 
star. Youth, clean, adventurous, aglow to the last finger- 
tip, impetuous to the tune of thirty breaths a minute. Youth 
with all its splendid waywardness, its generosities, its im- 
mense self-intoxications. Youth with the voice of a Golden 


70 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 7 1 

Summer in its heart, and for its plume the gorgeous fires 
of eve. 

Wealth often breeds apathy and parsimonious instincts. 
It is the beggar whose purse bursts with joy, whose soul 
blazes generous red upon the clouds. As for Flavian of 
Gambrevault and Avalon, he was rich but no miser, proud 
yet not haughty, sanguine but not vicious. Like many a 
man inspired by an instinctive idealism, his heart ran before 
his reason : they not having come cheek by jowl as in later 
years. He was very devout, yet very worldly ; very ardent, 
yet over hasty. Mark him then, a lovable fool in the eyes 
of philosophy; a cup of mingled wine, both white and red. 
He was a great lord ; yet his serfs loved him. 

The Lady Duessa’s parents, good folk, had been blessed 
with aspirations. Gambrevault and Avalon had bulked 
very gloriously under the steel-blue vault of pride. More- 
over, their daughter was a sensuous being, who panted for 
poetic surroundings, and lived to music. A boy of twenty ; 
a passionate, dark-eyed, big-bosomed houri of twenty and 
five ; bell, book, and ring — such had been the bridal bar- 
gain consummated on church principles five years ago or 
more. A youth of twenty is not supremely wise concern- 
ing the world, or his own heart. The Lord Flavian’s mar- 
riage had not proved a magic blessing to him. Parentally 
sealed marriage deeds are the edicts of the devil. 

Quickly are the mighty fallen, and the chalices of love 
broken. It was no mere chance ambuscade that waited 
open-mouthed for Flavian, Lord of Gambrevault and Ava- 
lon, Warden of the Southern Marches, Knight of the Order 
of the Rose, as he rode that morning to Gilderoy, a dis- 
ciple of Venus. In a certain perilous place, the road ran 
betwixt walls of rock, and under the umbrage of overhang- 
ing trees. Twenty men with pike and gisarme swarming 
out of the woods ; a short scuffle and a stabbed horse ; a 
gag in the mouth, a bandage over the eyes, a mule’s back, 
half a dozen thongs of stout leather. That same evening 
the Lord Flavian was brought like a bale of merchandise 


72 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


into Fulviac’s guard-room, and tumbled on a heap of straw 
in a corner. 

They were grim men, these forest rangers, not given 
to pity, or the light handling of a feud. A poniard point 
was their pet oath, a whip of the sword the best word with 
an enemy. They bit their thumb nails at creation, and 
were not gentle in the quest of a creed. Fulviac heard 
their news, and commended them. They were like the 
ogres of the old fables ; the red blood of a lusty aristocrat 
smelt fresh for the sword’s supper. 

The girl Yeoland was at her prayer-desk with a blaz- 
oned breviary under her fingers, when Fulviac came to 
her with tidings of the day’s capture. She knelt with her 
hands crossed upon her bosom, as Fulviac stood in the 
darkened doorway. To the man she appeared as the Ma- 
donna in some picture of the Annunciation, the yellow 
light from the lamp streaming down upon her with a lustre 
of sanctity. 

“ They have brought the boar home.” 

“ Dead ? ” 

“ Nay ; but his corpse candle walks the cavern.” 

For the girl it was a descent from spiritual themes to 
the stark realism of life. She left her prayer-desk with a 
little sigh. Her hands trembled as she drew a scarlet cloak 
about her, and fastened it with a girdle of green leather. 
Her eyes dwelt on Fulviac’s face with a species of dusky 
pain. 

“ Come,” he said to her. 

“ Whither ? ” 

“ To judge him.” 

“ Not before all, not in the guard-room.” 

“ Leave it to me,” he said. “ Be forewarned. We deal 
with no mere swashbuckler.” 

7'hey went together to Fulviac’s parlour, where a great 
brazen lamp hung from the roof, and a book bound in 
black leather lay chained on the table. Yeoland took the 
man’s carved chair, while he stood behind her leaning on 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


73 


the rail. She was paler than was her wont. Now and 
again she pressed a hand to her breast, as though to stay 
the too rapid beating of her heart. 

Two guards bearing partisans came in from the guard- 
room with a man bound and blindfold between them. A 
third followed, bearing a two-handed sword naked over his 
shoulder. He was known as Nord of the Hammer, an 
armourer like to a Norse Volund, burly, strong as a bear. 
The door was barred upon them. One of the guards 
plucked the cloth from the bound man’s face. 

In the malicious imagery of thought, Yeoland had often 
pictured to herself this Flavian of Gambrcvault, a coarse, 
florid ruffian, burly and brutal, a fleshly demigod in the 
world of feudalism. So much for conjecture. What she 
beheld was a straight-lipped, clean-limbed man, slim as a 
cypress, supple as good steel. The face was young yet 
strong, the grey eyes clear and fearless. Moreover there 
was a certain lonely look about him that invoked pity, and 
angered her in an enigmatic way. She was wrath with 
him for being what he was, for contradicting the previous 
imaginings of her mind. 

Flavian of Gambrevault stood bound before her, an 
aristocrat of aristocrats, outraged in pride, yet proud beyond 
complaint. The self-mastery of his breeding kept him a 
stately figure despite his tumbling and his youth, one con- 
vinced of lordship and the powerful splendour of his name. 
The whole affair to him was illogical, preposterous, inso- 
lent. A gentleman of the best blood in the kingdom could 
not be hustled out of his dignity by the horse-play of a 
bevy of cut-throats. 

Possibly the first vision to snare the man’s glance was 
the elfin loveliness of the girl, who sat throned in the great 
chair as on a judgment seat. He marked the rose-white 
beauty of her skin, her sapphire eyes gleaming black in 
certain lights, her ebon hair bound with a fillet of sky-blue 
leather. Moreover, it was plain to the man in turn that 
this damoisel in the red gown was deciphering his features 


74 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


in turn with a curiosity that was no vapid virtue. As for 
Fulviac, he watched them both with his amber-brown eyes, 
eyes that missed no movement in the mask of life. To 
him the scene under the great brazen lamp was a study in 
moods and emotions. 

The aristocrat was the first to defy the silence. He had 
stared round the room at his leisure, and at each of its 
motionless figures in turn. The great sword, slanted in 
gleaming nakedness over Nord’s shoulder, appeared to 
fascinate him for the moment. Despite his ambiguous 
sanctity, he showed no badge of panic or distress. 

Ignoring the woman, he challenged Fulviac, who leant 
upon the chair rail, watching him with an enigmatic 
smile. 

“ Goodman in the red doublet,” quoth he, “ when you 
have stared your fill at me, I will ask you to read me 
the moral of this fable.” 

Fulviac stroked his chin with the air of a man who 
holds an adversary at some subtle disadvantage. 

“ Messire,” he said, “ address yourself to madame — here ; 
you are her affair in the main.” 

The Warden of the Southern Marches bowed as by 
habit. His grey eyes reverted to Yeoland’s face, searching 
it with a certain courteous curiosity that took her beauty 
for its justification. The woman was an enigma to him, 
a most magical sphinx whose riddle taunted his reason. 

“ Madame,” he began. 

The girl stiffened in her chair at the word. 

‘‘ You hold me at a disadvantage, seeing that I am 
ignorant of sin or indiscretion against you. If it is a 
question of gold ” 

‘‘ Messire ! ” 

He swept her exclamation suavely aside and ran on 
mellifluously. 

“If it is a question of gold, let me beseech you to be 
frank with me. I will covenant with you instanter. My 
seneschal at Gambrevault will unbolt my coffers, and ease 


LOVE AMONG TEE RUINS 75 

your greed. Pray be outspoken. I will renounce the 
delight of lodging here for a purse of good rose nobles.” 

There was the faintest tinge of insolence in the man’s 
voice, an insolence that exaggerated to the full the charge 
of plunder in his words. Whether he hinted at blood 
money or no, there was sufficient poison in the sneer to 
fire the brain and scorch the heart to vengeance. 

The woman had risen from her chair, and stood grip- 
ping the carved woodwork with a passion that set her arms 
quivering like bands of tightened steel. The milk-white 
calm had melted from her face. Wrath ran riot in her 
blood. So large were her pupils that her eyes gleamed 
red. 

“ Ha, messire, I bring you to justice, and you offer me 
gold.” 

The man stared ; his eyes did not quail from hers. 

“Justice, madame ! Of what sin then am I accused? 
On my soul, I know not who you are.” 

She calmed herself a little, shook back her hair from her 
shoulders, fingered her throat, breathing fast the while. 

“ My name, messire ? Ha, you shall have it. I am 
Yeoland, daughter of that Rual of Cambremont whom 
you slaughtered at the gate of his burning house. I — 
am the sister of those fair sons whom you did to death. 
Blood money, forsooth I God grant, messire, that you are 
in honest mind for heaven, for you die to-night.” 

The man had bent to catch her words. He straightened 
suddenly like a tree whose throat is loosed from the grim 
grip of the wind. He went grey as granite, flushed red 
again as a dishonoured girl. The words had touched him 
with the iron of truth. 

“ Hear me,” he said to her. 

“ Ah, you would lie.” 

“ By Heaven, no ; give me an hour’s justice.” 

“ Murderer.” 

“ Before God, you wrong me.” 

He stood with twitching lips, shackled hands twisting 


76 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


one within the other. For the instant words eluded him, 
like fruit jerked from the mouth of a thirst-maddened 
Tantalus. Anon, his manhood gathered in him, rushed 
forth redly like blood from a stricken throat. 

“ Daughter of Rual, hear me, I tell you the truth. I, 
Flavian of Gambrevault, had in my pay a company of hired 
‘ spears,’ rough devils from the north. The braggarts 
served me against John of Brissac, were half their service 
drunk and mutinous. When Lententide had come, their 
captain swore to me, ‘ Lording, pay us and let us go. 
We have spilt blood near Gildcroy,’ scullion blood he 
swore, ‘ give us good bounty, and let us march.’ So at 
his word I gave them largesse, and packed them from 
Gambrevault with pennons flying. Methought they and 
their brawlings were at an end. Before God and the saints, 
I never knew of this.” 

Yeoland considered him, strenuous as he seemed towards 
truth. He was young, passionate, sanguine; for one short 
moment she pitied him, and pondered his innocence in her 
heart. It was then that Fulviac plucked at her sleeve, 
spoke in her ear, words that hardened her like a winter 
frost. 

She stared in the man’s eyes, as she gave him his death- 
thrust with the sureness of hate. 

“ Blood for blood,” were her words to him. 

‘‘ Is this justice ! ” 

“ I have spoken.” 

“ Monstrously. Hear me ” 

“ Messire, make your peace with Heaven, I give you till 
daylight.” 

The man stumbled against the table, white as the moon. 
Youth strove in him, the crimson fountain of life’s wine, 
the wild cry of the dawn. His eyes were great with a 
superhuman hunger. Fulviac’s strong voice answered 
him. 

“ Hence, hence. At dawn, Nord, do your duty.” 


XI 


Give doubt the password, and the outer battlements are 
traitorously stormed. Parley with pity, and the white 
banner flutters on the keep. 

Provided her emotions inspire her, a woman is strong ; 
let her take to logic, and she is a rushlight wavering in 
the wind. In her red heart lies her divinity ; her feet are 
of clay when reason rules her head. 

The girl Yeoland took doubt to her chamber that night, 
a malicious sprite, sharp of wit and wild of eye. All the 
demons of discord were loosed in the silence of the night. 
Pandora’s box stood open, and the hours were void of 
sleep ; faces crowded the shadows, voices wailed in the 
gloom. Her thoughts rioted like frightened bats flutter- 
ing and squeaking round a torch. Sleep, like a pale Cas- 
sandra, stood aloof and watched the mask of these manifold 
emotions. 

Turn and twist as she would amid her fevered pillows, 
a wild voice haunted her, importunate and piteous. As 
the cry of one sinking in a stormy sea, it rang out with 
a passionate vehemence. Moreover, there was a subtle 
echo in her own heart, a strong appeal that did not spare 
her, toss and struggle as she would. Decision fluttered 
like a wounded bird. Malevolence rushed back as an 
ocean billow from the bastion of a cliff that emblemed 
mercy. 

With a beating of wings and a discordant clamour, a 
screech-owl buffeted the casement. A lamp still burnt 
beneath the crucifix ; the glow had beaconed the bird out 
of the night. Starting up with a shiver of fear, she 

77 


78 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


quenched the lamp, and crept back to bed. The dark- 
ness seemed to smother her like a cloak ; the silence took 
to ghostly whisperings j a death-watch clicked against the 
wall. 

The night crawled on like a funeral cortege. Baffled, 
outfaced, sleepless, she rose from her tumbled bed, and 
paced the room as in a fever. Still wakefulness and a 
thousand dishevelled thoughts that hung about her like her 
snoodless hair. Again and again, she heard the distant 
whirr and rattle of wheels, the clangour of the wire, as 
the antique clock in Fulviac’s chamber smote away the 
hours of night. Each echo of the sound seemed to spur 
to the quick her wavering resolution. Time was flying, 
jostling her thoughts as in a mill race. With the dawn, 
the Lord Flavian would die. 

Anon she flung the casement wide and stared out into 
the night. A calm breeze moved amid the masses of ivy, 
and played upon her face. She bared her breast to its 
breath, and stood motionless with head thrown back, her 
white throat glimmering amid her hair. Below, the 
sombre multitudes of the trees showed dim and ghostly, 
deep with mystery. A vague wind stirred the branches ; 
the dark void swirled with unrest, breaking like a midnight 
sea upon a cliff. A few straggling stars peeped through 
the lattice of the sky. 

She leant against the sill, rested her chin upon her 
palms, and brooded. Thoughts, fierce, passionate, and 
clamorous, came crying like gusts of wind through a ruined 
house. Death and dead faces, blood, the yawn of 
sepulchres, life and the joy of it, all these passed as visions 
of fire before her fancy. Vengeance and pity agonised her 
soul. She answered yea and nay with the same breath ; 
condemned and pardoned with contradicting zeal. Youth 
lifted up its face to her, piteous and beautiful. Death 
reached out a rattling hand into her bosom. 

Presently, a far glow began to creep into the sky ; a 
gradual greyness absorbed the shadows of the night. The 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


79 


day was dawning. From the forest, the trembling orisons 
of the birds thrilled like golden light into the air. Unutter- 
able joy seemed to flood forth from the piping throats. 
Even the trees seemed to quiver to the sound. With a 
rush of bitter passion, she closed the casement, cast herself 
upon her bed, and strove to pray. 

Again came the impotent groping into nothingness. A 
dense mist seemed to rise betwixt her soul and the white 
face of the Madonna. Aspiration lessened like an after- 
glow, and dissolved away into a dark void of doubt. Prayer 
eluded her ; the utterances of her heart died in a miserable 
endeavour, and she could not think. 

The spiritual storm wore itself away as the dawn 
streamed in with a glimmer of gold. Yeoland lay and 
stared at the casement, and the figure of Sebastian rendered 
radiant by the dawn, the whiteness of his limbs tongued 
with dusky rills of blood, where the barbs had smitten into 
the flesh. Sombre were the eyes, and shadowy with suffer- 
ing. A halo of gold gilded the youthful face. The painted 
glass about him blazed like a shower of gems. 

The Sebastian of the casement recalled to her with wiz- 
ard power the face of the man whom death claimed at 
dawn. The thought woke no new passion in her. The 
night’s vigil had left her reason like a skein of tangled silk, 
and with the day she verged towards a wearied apathy. 
The voice of pity in her waned to an infrequent whisper 
that came like the rustling of leaves on a summer night. 
She realised that it had dawned an hour or more ; that the 
man had knelt and fallen to Nord’s sword. 

Suddenly the silence was snapped by a far outcry sound- 
ing in the bowels of the cliff. Gruff voices seemed to 
echo and re-echo like breakers in a cavern. A horn blared. 
She heard the thudding of a door, the shrilling of mail, the 
clangour of iron steps passing up the gallery. 

Shivering, she raised herself upon her elbow to listen. 
Were they bringing her the man’s head, grey and blood- 
dabbled, with closed lids and mangled neck ? She fell back 


8o 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


again upon her pillows, pressed her hands to her face with 
a great revulsion of pity, for the image had burnt in upon 
her brain. 

The clangour of harness drew near, with an iron rhythm 
as of the march of destiny. It ceased outside the door. A 
heavy hand beat upon the panelling. 

‘‘ Who knocks ? ” 

Her own voice, strained and shrill, startled her like an 
owl’s hoot. Fulviac’s deep bass answered her from the 
passage. 

‘‘Unbar to me, I must speak with you.” 

She started up from the bed in passionless haste, ran to 
a closet, drew out a cloak and wrapped it about her 
shoulders. Her bare feet showed white under her night- 
gear as she slid the bolt from its socket, and let the man 
in. He was fully armed save for his salade, which he car- 
ried in the hollow of his arm. His red cloak swept his 
heels. A tower of steel, there was a clangorous bluster 
about him that bespoke action. 

The girl had drawn apart, shivering, and gathering her 
cloak about her, for in the gloom of the place she had 
thought for an instant that Fulviac carried a mangled head. 

“ A rider has brought news,” he said to her. “ John of 
Brissac’s men have taken Prosper the Preacher, to hang 
him, as their lord has vowed, over the gate of Fontenaye. 
They are on the march home from Qilderoy, ten lances 
and a company of arbalestiers. I ride to ambuscado them. 
Prosper shall not hang ! ” 

She stood with her back to the casement, and looked at 
him with a restless stare. Her thoughts were with the 
man whose grey eyes had pleaded with her through the 
night. Her fears clamoured like captives at the gate of a 
dungeon. 

“ What is more, this vagabond of Avalon has been beg- 
ging twelve hours’ grace to scrape his soul clean for Peter.” 

“ Ah ! ” she said, with a sudden stark earnestness. 

“I will give him till sunset ” 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


8i 


“ If I suffer it ” 

“ The dog has spirit. I would thrust no man into the 
dark till he has struck a bargain with his own particular 
saints.” 

She drew back, sank down into a chair with her hair 
half hiding her face. 

“You are right in being merciful,” she said very slowly. 

Magic riddle of life ; rare roseate rod of love. Was it 
youth leaping towards youth, the cry of the lark to the 
dawn, the crimson flowering of a woman’s pity ? The air 
seemed woven through with gold. A thousand lutes had 
sounded in the woods. Voiceless, she sat with flickering 
lids, amazed at the alchemy that had wrought ruth out of hate. 

Fulviac had drawn back into the gloom of the gallery. 
He turned suddenly upon his heel, and his scabbard smote 
and rang against the rock. 

“ I take all the men I have,” he said to her, “ even the 
dotard Jaspar, for he knows the ways. Gregory and 
Adrian I leave on guard ; they are tough gentlemen, and 
loyal. As for the lordling, he is well shackled.” 

Yeoland was still cowering in her chair with the mysteri- 
ous passions of the moment. 

“ You will return ? ” she asked him. 

“ By nightfall, if we prosper ; as we shall.” 

He moved two paces, stayed again in his stride, and 
flung a last message to her from the black throat of the 
passage. 

“ Remember, there is no recantation over this business. 
The man is my affair as well as yours. He is a power in 
the south, and would menace us. Remember, he must die.” 

He turned and left her without more palaver. She 
heard him go clanging down the gallery, heard the thunder 
of a heavy door, the braying of a horn. A long while she 
sat motionless, still as stone, her hands lying idle in her 
lap. When an hour had passed, the sun smote in, and 
found her kneeling at her prayer-desk, her breviary dewed 
with tears. 


XII 


Fulviac passed away that morning into the forest, a shaft 
of red amid the mournful glooms. Colour and steel streamed 
after him fantastically. The great cliff, silent and desolate, 
basked like a leviathan in the sun. 

Of the daylight and its crown of gold, the girl Yeoland 
had no deep joy. When she had ended her passion over 
the blazoned pages of her breviary, and mopped her tears 
with a corner of her gown, she rose to realism, and turned 
her mood to the cheating of the dues of time. 

The hours lagged with enough monotony to degenerate 
a saint; Yeoland was very much a woman. The night 
had left her a legacy of evil. She had shadows under 
her eyes, and a constant swirl of thoughts within her 
brain that made solitude a torture-house, full of prophetic 
pain. There was her lute, and she eschewed it, seeing 
that her fingers seemed as ice. As for her embroidery, 
the stitches wandered haphazard, wrought grotesque 
things, or lost all method in a stupor of sloth. She 
threw the banner aside in a fume at last, and let her 
broodings have their way. 

The forenoon crawled, like a beggar on a dusty high- 
road in the welt of August. Time seemed to stand and 
mock her. Hour by hour, she was tortured by the 
vision of steel falling upon a strong young neck, of a 
white face lying in a pool of blood, of a dripping carcase 
and a sweating sword. Though the vision maddened 
her, what could her weak hands do ? The man was 
shackled, and guarded by men with whom she dared not 
tamper. Moreover, she remembered the last look in 
Fulviac’s keen eyes. 


82 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


83 


Towards evening she grew rabid with unrest, fled from 
the cave by the northern stair, and took sanctuary amid the 
tall shadows of the forest. The pine avenues were ever 
like a church to her, solemn, stately, sympathetic as night. 
There was nought to anger, nought to bring discord, where 
the croon of the branches soothed like a song. 

It was as she played the nun in this forest cloister, 
that a strange thought challenged her consciousness under 
the trees. It was subtle, yet full of an incomprehensible 
bitterness, that made her heart hasten. Even as she con- 
sidered it, as a girl gazes at a jewel lying in her palm, 
the charm flashed magic fire into her eyes. This victim 
for the sword lay shackled to the wall in the great guard- 
room. She would go and steal a last glance at him before 
Fulviac and death returned. 

Stairway, bower, and gallery were behind her. She 
stood in Fulviac’s parlour, where the lamp burnt dimly, 
and harness glimmered on the walls. The door of the 
room stood ajar. She stole to it, and peered through the 
crack left by the clumsy hingeing, into the lights and 
shadows of the room beyond. 

At the lower end of a long table the two guards sat 
dicing, sprawling greedily over the board, the lust of 
hazard writ large in their looks. The dice kept up a 
continuous patter, punctuated by the intent growls of 
the gamesters. By the sloping wall of the cavern, 
palleted on a pile of dirty straw, lay the Lord Flavian of 
Gambrevault, with his hands shackled to a staple in the 
rock. He lay stretched on his side, with his back turned 
towards the light, so that his face was invisible to the girl 
behind the door. 

She watched the man awhile with a curious and dark- 
eyed earnestness. There was pathos in the prostrate 
figure, as though Hezekiah-like the man had turned to 
the bare rock and the callous comfort despair could give. 
Once she imagined that she saw a jerking of the shoulders, 
that hinted at something very womanish. The thought 


84 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


smote new pity into her, and sent her away from the 
cranny, trembling. 

Yeoland withdrew into Fulviac’s room, and thence into 
the murk of the gallery leading to her bower. A sudden 
sense of impotence had flooded into her heart ; she even 
yearned for some shock of Fate that might break the very 
bonds that bound her to her vengeance, as to a corpse. 
On the threshold of her room, a sudden sound brought her 
to a halt like a hand thrust out of the dark to clutch her 
throat. She stood listening, like a miser for thieves, and 
heard much. 

A curse came from the guard-room, the crash of an 
overturned bench, the tingling kiss of steel. She heard 
the scream as of one stabbed, a smothered uproar, an 

indiscriminate scuffling, then silence. She stood a 

moment in the dark, listening. The silence was heavy 
and implacable as the rock above. Fear seized her, a 
lust to know the worst. She ran down the gallery into 
Fulviac’s room. The door was still ajar; she thrust it 
open and entered the great cavern. 

Her doubts elapsed in an instant. At the long table, 
a man sat with his head pillowed on his arms. A red 
rivulet curled away over the board, winding amid the 
drinking horns, isleting the dice in its course. On the 
floor lay the second guard, a smudge of crimson oozing 
from his grey doublet, his arms rigid, his hands clawing 
in the death-agony. At the end of the table stood the 
Lord Flavian of Gambrevault, free. 

Three cubits of steel had tangled the plot vastly in the 
passing of a minute. The climax was like a knot of silk 
thrust through with a sword. The two stood motionless 
a moment, staring at each other across the length of the 
table, like a couple of mutes over a grave. The man was 
the first to break the silence. 

“ Madame,” he said, with a certain grand air, and a 
flippant gesture, ‘‘ suffer me to condone with you over 
the lamentable tricks of Fortune. But for gross selfish- 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


85 


ness on my part, I should still be chastening myself for the 
unjust balancing of our feud. God wills it, seemingly, 
that I should continue to be your debtor.” 

Despite her woman’s wit, the girl was wholly puzzled 
how to answer him. She was wickedly conscious in her 
heart of a subtle gratitude to Heaven for the sudden baulk- 
ing of her malice. The man expected wrath from her, 
perhaps an outburst of passion. Taking duplicity to her 
soul, she stood forward on the dais and tilted her chin at 
him with dutiful defiance. 

“Thank my irresolution, mcssire,” she said, “for this 
reprieve of fortune.” 

He came two steps nearer, as though not unminded to 
talk with her in open field. 

“ At dawn I might have had you slain,” she continued, 
with some hastening of her tongue ; “ I confess to having 
pitied you a little. You are young, a mere boy, weak and 
powerless. I gave you life for a day.” 

The man reddened slightly, glanced at the dead men, 
and screwed his mouth into a dry smile. 

“ Most harmless, as you see, madamc,” he said. “ For 
your magnanimity, I thank you. Deo gratias^ I will be as 
grateful as I may.” 

She stood considering him out of her dark, long-lashed 
eyes. The man was good to look upon, ruddy and clean 
of lip, with eyes that stared straight to the truth, and a pose of 
the head that prophesied spirit. The sunlight of youth played 
sanguine upon his face ; yet there was also a certain shadow 
there, as of premature wisdom, born of pain. There were 
faint lines about the mouth and eyes. For all its sleek and 
ruddy comeliness, it was not the face of a boy. 

“ Messire,” she said to him at last. 

“ Madame.” 

“ He who lurks over long in the wolf’s den may meet 
the dam at the door.” 

He smiled at her, a frank flash of sympathy that was 
not devoid of gratitude. 


86 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


“ Haste would be graceless,” he said to her. 

“ How so ? ” she asked him. 

“ Ha, Madame Yeoland, have I not watched my arms 
at night before the high altar at Avalon ? Have I not 
sworn to serve women, to keep troth, and to love God ? 
You judge me hardly if you think of me as a butcher 
and a murderer. For the death of your kinsfolk I hold 
myself ashamed.” 

There was a fine light upon his face, a power of truth 
in his voice that was not hypocritic. The girl stared 
him over with a certain critical earnestness that boasted 
a gleam of approval. 

“Fair words,” she said to him; “you did not speak 
thus to me last eve.” 

“ Ah ! ” he cried, beaming on her, “ I was cold as a 
corpse ; nor could I whine, for pride.” 

“ And your shackles \ ” 

He laughed and held up both hands; the wrists were 
chafed and bloody. 

“ It was ever a jest against me,” he said, “ that I had 
the hands of a woman, white and meagre, yet strong with 
the sword. Your fellows thrust a pair of wristlets on me 
fit for a Goliath, strong, but bulky. My hands have 
proved my salvation. I pulled them through while the 
guards diced, crept for a sword, gained it, and my 
freedom.” 

She nodded, and was not markedly dismal, though the 
wind had veered against her cause. The man with the grey 
eyes was a being one could not quarrel with with easy sin- 
cerity. Probably it did not strike her at the moment that 
this friendly argument with the man she had plotted to 
slay was a contradiction worthy of a woman. 

The Lord of Avalon meanwhile had drawn still nearer 
to the girl upon the dais. His grey eyes had taken a 
warmer lustre into their depths, as though her beauty 
had kindled something akin to awe in his heart. He set 
the point of the sword on the floor, his hands on the hilt. 


LOFE AMONG THE EUINS 8 / 

and looked up at the white face medallioned in the black 
splendour of its hair. 

“ Madame,” he said very gravely, “ it is the way of the 
world to feel remorse when such an emotion is expedient, 
and to fling penitence into the bottomless pit when the 
peril is past. I shall prove to you that mine is no such 
April penitence. Here, on the cross of my sword, I swear 
to you a great oath. First, that I will build a chapel in 
Cambremont glade, and establish a priest there. Secondly, 
I will rebuild the tower, refit it royally, attach to it cottars 
and borderers from mine own lands. Lastly, mass shall be 
said and tapers burnt for your kinsfolk in every church in 
the south. I myself will do such penance as the Lord 
Bishop shall ordain for my soul.” 

The man was hotly in earnest over the vow — red as a 
ruby set in the sun. Yeoland looked down upon him with 
the glimmer of a smile upon her lips as he kissed the cross 
of the sword. 

“ You seem honest,” she said to him. 

“ Madame, on this sword I swear it. It is hard to 
believe any good of an enemy. Behold me then before 
you as a friend. There is a feud betwixt us, not of my 
willing. By God’s light I am eager to bridge the gulf 
and to be at peace.” 

She shook her head and looked at him with a sudden 
mysterious sadness. Such a pardon was beyond belief, 
the man’s pure ardour, nothing but seed cast upon sand. 
Fulviac, a tower of steel, seemed to loom beyond him — 
an iron figure of Fate, grim and terrible. 

“ This can never be,” she said. 

His eyes were honestly sorrowful. 

‘‘ Is madame so implacable ? ” 

‘‘Ah ! ” she said, “you do not understand me.” 

He stood a moment in thought, as though casting 
about in his heart for the reason of her sternness. Despite 
her wrongs, he was assured by some spirit voice that it 
was not death that stalked betwixt them like an angel of 


ZOF£ AMONG THE RUINS 


88 



doom. As he stood and brooded, a gleam of the truth 
flashed in upon his brain. He went some steps back 
from her, as though destiny decreed it that they should 
sever unabsolved. 

“Your pardon, madame,” he said to her; “the riddle 
is plain to me. I no longer grope into the dark. This 
man, here, is your husband.” 

She went red as a rose blushing on her green throne 
at the coming of the dawn. 

“ Messire.” 

“ Your pardon.” 

“ Ah, I am no wife,” she said to him. “ God knows 
but for this man I should be friendless and without home. 
He has spread honour and chivalry before my feet like a 
snow-white cloak. Even in this, my godless vengeance, 
he has served me.” 

The man strode suddenly towards the dais, with his face 
turned up to hers. A strange light played upon it, half 
of passion, half of pity. His voice shook, for all its 
sanguine strength. 

“ Ah, madame, tell me one thing before I go.” 

“ Messire.” 

“ Have I your pardon ? ” 

“ If you love life, messire, leave me.” 

“ Have I your pardon ? ” 

“ Go ! ere it is too late.” 

Like a ghostly retort to her appeal came the sound of 
armed men thundering over the bridge. Their rough 
voices rose in the night’s silence, smitten through with 
the clash and clangour of arms. Fulviac had caught 
John of Brissac’s company in the woods by Gilderoy. 
There had been a bloody tussle and much slaughter. 
Triumphant, they were at the gate with Prosper the 
Preacher in their midst. 

The pair in the cavern stared at each other with a mute 
appeal. 

“ Fulviac,” said the girl in a whisper. 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


89 


“ The door ! ” 

“ It is barred.” 

They were silent and round-eyed, as children caught 
in the midst of mischief. Mailed fists and pike staves 
were beating upon the gate. A babel of impatience 
welled up without. 

“ Adrian, Gregory ! ” 

“ Lazy curs ! ” 

“ Unbar, unbar ! ” 

Mocking silence leered in retort. Yeoland and the 
Lord of Avalon were still as mice. The din slackened 
and waned, as though Fulviac’s men were listening for 
sound of life within. Then came more blows upon the 
gate ; fingers fumbled at the closed grill. The man 
Gregory lay and stared at the rocky roof ; Adrian sat 
with his face pooled by his own blood. 

A fiercer voice sounded above the clamour. It was 
Fulviac’s. The girl shivered as she stood. 

“Ho, there, Gregory, Adrian ; what’s amiss with ye? ” 

Still silence, mocking and implacable. The lull held for 
the moment ; then the storm gathered. 

“ Break down the gate,” roared the voice ; “ by God, 
we will see the bottom of this damned silence.” 

The Lord Flavian of Avalon had stood listening with 
the look of a man cooped in a cavern, who hears the sea 
surging to his feet. He glanced at the dead guards, and 
went white. To save his soul from purgatory it behoved 
him to act, and to act quickly. A single lamp still burnt 
in the oratory of hope. He went near to the girl on the 
dais, and held up the crossed hilt of his sword. 

“ By the Holy Cross, mercy ! ” 

She cast a frightened glance into his eyes, and continued 
mute a moment. The thunder grew against the gate, the 
crash of steel, a rending din that went echoing into all the 
pits and passage-ways of the place. Fulviac’s men had 
dragged the trunk of a fallen pine up the causeway, and 
were charging the gate till the timber groaned. 


90 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


The man, with his sword held like a crucifix, stood and 
pleaded with his eyes. 

“ Mercy ! ” he said ; “ you know this warren and can 
save me.” 

“ Are you a craven ” 

“ Craven ? before God, no, only desperate. What hope 
have I unharnessed, one sword against fifty ? ” 

For yet another moment she appeared irresolute, dazed 
by the vision of Fulviac’s powerful wrath. He was a stark 
man and a terrible, and she feared him. The timbers of 
the gate began to crack and gape. Flavian of Avalon 
lifted up his voice to her with a passionate outburst of 
despair. 

‘‘ God, madame, I cannot die. I am young, look at me, 
life is at its dawn. By your woman’s mercy, hide me. 
Give me not back to death.” 

His bitter agitation smote her to the core. She looked 
into his eyes ; they were hungry as love, and very piteous. 
There could be no sinning against those eyes. Great fear 
flooded over her like a green billow, bearing her to the in- 
evitable. In a moment she was as hot to save him as if 
he had been her lover. 

“ Come,” she said, “ quick, before the gate gives.” 

She led him like the wind through Fulviac’s parlour, and 
down the gallery to her own bower. It was dark and 
lampless. She groped to the postern, fumbled at the latch 
and conquered it. Night streamed in. She pushed the 
man out and pointed to the steps. 

“ The forest,” she said, “ for your life ; bear by the stars 
for the north.” 

A full moon had reared her silver buckler in the 
sky. The night was sinless and superb, drowned in 
a mist of phosphor glory. The man knelt at her 
feet a moment, and pressed his lips to the hem of her 
gown. 

“ The Virgin bless you ! ” 

Go ” 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


91 


“ I shall remember.” 

He descended and disappeared where the trees swept up 
with wizard glimmerings to touch the cliff. When he had 
fled, Yeoland passed back into the cavern, and met Fulviac 
before the splintered gate with a lie upon her lips. 




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XIII 


Fra Balthasar rubbed his colours in the chapel of Castle 
Avalon, and stared complacently upon the frescoes his fingers 
had called into being. 

A migratory friar, Fra Balthasar had come from the 
rich skies, the purple vineyards, the glimmering orange 
groves of the far south. Gossip hinted that a certain 
romantic indiscretion had driven him northwards over 
the sea. A “ bend sinister ” ran athwart his reputation as 
a priest. Men muttered that he was an infidel, a blasphe- 
mous vagabond, versed in all the damnable heresies of 
antiquity. Be that as it may, Fra Balthasar had come 
to Gilderoy on a white mule, with two servants at his 
back, an apt tongue to serve him, and much craft as a 
painter and goldsmith. He had set up a bottega at 
Gilderoy, and had cozened the patronage of the magnates 
and the merchants. Moreover, he had netted the favour 
of the Lord Flavian of Avalon, and was blazoning his 
chapel for him with the lavish fancy of a Florentine. 

Fra Balthasar stood in a cataract of sunlight, that 
poured in through a painted window in the west. He 
wore the white habit of Dominic and the long black 
mantle. A golden mist played about his figure as he 
rubbed his palette, and scanned with the egotism of the 
artist the Pieta painted above the Lord Flavian’s state 
stall. That gentleman, in the flesh, had established him- 
self on a velvet hassock before the altar steps, thus flatter- 
ing the friar in the part of a sympathetic patron. The 
Lord of Avalon had dedicated his own person to art as 
an Eastern King in the splendour of Gothic arms, kneeling 
bare-headed before the infant Christ. 

95 


96 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


Fra Balthasar was a plump man and a comely, black 
of eye and full of lip. His shaven chin shone blue as 
sleek velvet. He had turned from the Pieta towards the 
altar, where a triptych gleamed with massed and brilliant 
colour. The Virgin, a palpitating divinity breathing stars 
and gems from her full bosom, gazed with a face of 
sensuous serenity at the infant lying in her lap. She 
seemed to exhale an atmosphere of gold. On either wing, 
angels, transcendant girls in green and silver, purple and 
azure, scarlet and white, made the soul swim with visions 
of ruddy lips and milk-white hands. Their wings gleamed 
like opals. They looked too frail for angels, too human 
for heaven. 

The Lord of Avalon sat on his scarlet hassock, and 
stared at the Madonna with some measure of awe. She 
was no attenuated, angular, green-faced fragment of 
saintliness, but by every curve a woman, from plump 
finger to coral lip. 

“ You are no Byzantine,” quoth the man on the hassock, 
with something of a sigh. 

The priest glanced at him and smiled. There were 
curves in lip and nostril that were more than indicative 
of a sleek and sensuous worldliness. Fra Balthasar was 
much of an Antinous, and doted on the conviction. 

“ I paint women, messire,” he said. 

His lordship laughed. 

“ Divinities ? ” 

Balthasar flourished his brush. 

‘‘ Divine creatures, golden flowers of the world. Give 
me the rose to crush against my mouth, violets to burn 
upon my bosom. Truth, sire, consider the sparkling 
roundness of a woman’s arm. Consider her wine-red lips, 
her sinful eyes, her lily fingers dropping spikenard into 
the soul. I confess, sire, that I am a man.” 

The friar’s opulent extravagance of sentiment suited the 
litheness of his look. Balthasar had enthroned himself in 
his own imagination as a species of Apollo, a golden-tongued 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


97 


seer, whose soul soared into the glittering infinitudes of art. 
An immense egotist, he posed as a full-blooded divinity, 
palpitating to colour and to sound. He had as many 
moods as a vain woman, and was a mere fire-fly in the 
matter of honour. 

“ Reverend sire,” quoth the man on the footstool with 
some tightening of the upper lip, “ you bulk too big for 
your frock, methinks.” 

Balthasar touched a panel with his brush ; cast a glance 
over his shoulder, with a cynical lifting of the nostril. 

My frock serves me, sire, as well as a coat of mail.” 

“ And you believe the things you paint ? ” 

The man swept a vermilion streak from his brush. 

“ An ingenuous question, messire.” 

“ I am ever ingenuous.” 

‘‘A perilous habit.” 

“Yet you have not answered me.” 

The friar tilted his chin like a woman eyeing herself in 
a mirror. 

“ Religion is full of picturesque incidents,” he said. 

“ And is profitable.” 

“ Sire, you shame Solomon. There are ever many rich 
and devout fools in the world. Give me a gleaming Venus, 
rising ruddy from the sea, rather than a lachrymose Mag- 
dalene. But what would you? I trim my Venus up in 
fine apparel, put a puling infant in her lap. Ecce — Sancta 
Maria 

The man on the footstool smiled despite the jester’s 
theme, a smile that had more scorn in it than sympathy. 

“ You verge on blasphemy,” he said. 

“ There can be no blasphemy where there is no belief.” 

“ You are over subtle, my friend.” 

“ Nay, sire, I have come by that godliness of mind when 
man discovers his own godhead. Let your soul soar, I 
say, let it beat its wings into the blue of life. Hence with 
superstition. Shall I subordinate my mind to the prosings 
of a mad charlatan such as Saul of Tarsus ? Shall I, like 


98 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


each rat in this mortal drain, believe that some god cares 
when I have gout in my toe, or when I am tempted to bow 
to Venus ? ” 

The man on the hassock grimaced, and eyed the friar 
much as though he had stumbled on some being from the 
underworld. He was a mystic for all his manhood. 

“ God pity your creed,” he said. 

“ God, the- inflated mortal ” 

“ Enough.” 

“ This man god of yours who tosses the stars like so 
many lemons.” 

“ Enough, sir friar.” 

“ Defend me from your mass of metaphor, your relics 
of barbarism. We, the wise ones, have our own hierarchy, 
our own Olympus.” 

“ On my soul, you are welcome to it,” quoth the man 
by the altar. 

Balthasar’s hand worked viciously ; he was strenuous 
towards his own beliefs, after the fashion of dreamers de- 
lirious with egotism. The very splendour of his infidelity 
took its birth from the fact that it was largely of his own 
creating. His pert iconoclasm pandered to his own vast 
self-esteem. 

“ Tell me for what you live,” said the man by the 
altkr. 

“ For beauty.” 

“ And the senses ? ” 

“Colours, odours, sounds. To breathe, to burn, and 
to enjoy. To be a Greek and a god.” 

“ And life ? ” 

“ Is a great fresco, a pageant of passions.” 

The Lord of Avalon sprang up and began to pace the 
aisle with the air of a man whose blood is fevered. For 
all his devoutness and his mystical fidelity, he was in too 
human and passionate a mood to be invulnerable to Bal- 
thasar’s sensuous shafts of fire. The Lord Flavian had 
come by a transcendental star-soaring spirit, an inspiration 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 99 

that had torched the wild beacon of romance. He was 
red for a riot of chivalry, a passage of desire. 

Turning back towards the altar, he faced the Madonna 
with her choir of angel girls. Fra Balthasar was watch- 
ing him with a feline sleekness of visage, and a smile that 
boasted something of contempt. The friar considered spirit- 
uality a species of magician’s lanthorn for the cozening of 
fools. 

“ What quip have you for love ? ” said the younger man, 
halting by the altar rails. 

Balthasar stood with poised brush. 

“ There is some sincerity in the emotion,” he said. 

“ You are experienced ? ” 

“ Sire, consider my ‘ habit.’ ” 

The friar’s mock horror was surprising, an excellent jest 
that fell like a blunted bolt from the steel of a vigorous 
manhood. The Lord Flavian ran on. 

‘‘ Shall I fence with an infidel ? ” he asked. 

“ Sire, a man may be a man without the creed of 
Athanasius.” 

‘‘ How much of me do you understand ? ” 

Fra Balthasar cleared his throat. 

‘‘ The Lady Duessa, sire, is a rose of joy.” 

“ Monk ! ” 

“ My lord, it was your dictum that you are ever ingenu- 
ous. I echo you.” 

“ Need I confess to you on such a subject ? ” 

“ Nay, sire, you have the inconsistency of a poet.” 

‘‘ How so ? ” 

“ Well, well, one can sniff rotten apples without opening 
the door of the cupboard.” 

The younger man jerked away, and went striding be- 
twixt the array of frescoes with something of the wild 
vigour of a blind Polyphemus. Balthasar, subtle sophist, 
watched him from the angle of his eye with the sardonic 
superiority of one well versed in the contradictions of the 
world. He had scribbled a shrewd sketch of the passions 


LofC. 


100 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


Stirring in his patron’s heart. Had he not heard from the 
man’s own lips of the white-faced elf of the pine woods 
and her vengeance ? And the Lady Duessa ! Fra Bal- 
thasar was as wise in the gossip of Gilderoy as any woman. 

“ Sire,” he said, as the aristocrat turned in his stride, “ I 
ask of you a bold favour.” 

“ Speak out.” 

“ Suffer me to paint your mood in words.” 

The man stared, shrugged his shoulders, smiled enig- 
matically. 

‘‘Try your craft,” he said. 

Balthasar began splashing in a foreground with irritable 
bravado. 

“ My lord, you were a fool at twenty,” were his words. 

“ A thrice damned fool,” came the echo. 

Balthasar chuckled. 

“ And now, messire, a golden chain makes a Tantalus 
of you. Life crawls like a sluggish river. You chafe, 
you strain, you rebel, feed on your own heart, sin to assert 
your liberty. Youth slips from you ; the sky narrows 
about your ears. Well, well, have I not read aright ? ” 

“ Speak on,” quoth the man by the altar. 

“ Ah, sire, it is the old tale. They have cramped up 
your youth with book and ring ; shut you up in a moral 
sarcophagus with a woman they call your wife. You burn 
for liberty, and the unknown that shines like a purple streak 
jn a fading west. Ah, sire, you look for that one marvel- 
lous being, who shall torch again the youth in your heart, 
make your blood burn, your soul to sing. That one woman 
in the world, mysterious as the moon, subtle as the night, 
ineffably strange as a flaming dawn. That woman who 
shall lift you to the stars ; whose lips suck the sap of the 
world ; whose bosom breathes to the eternal swoon of all 
sweet sounds. She shall light the lust of battle in your 
heart. For her your sword shall leap, your towers totter. 
Chivalry should lead you like a pillar of fire out of the 
night, a heroic god striving for a goddess.” 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS lOI 

The Lord of Avalon stood before the high altar as one 
transfigured. Youth leapt in him, red, glorious, and tri- 
umphant. Balthasar’s tongue had set the pyre aburning. 

“ By God, it is the truth,” he said. 

The friar gathered his brushes, and took breath. 

“ Hast thou found thy Beatrice, O my son ? ” 

“ Have I gazed into heaven ? ” 

Balthasar’s voice filled the chapel. 

“ Live, sire, live ! ” he said. 

“ Ah ! ” 

“ Be mad ! Drink star wine, and snufF the odours of 
all the sunsets ! Live, live ! You can repent in comfort 
when you are sixty and measure fifty inches round the 
waist.” 


XIV 


Dame Duessa had come to Avalon, having heard certain 
whisperings of Gilderoy, and of a golden-haired Astarte 
who kept house there. Dame Duessa was a proud woman 
and a passionate, headstrong as a reformer, jealous as a 
parish priest. She boasted a great ancestry and a great 
name, and desires and convictions in keeping. She was a 
woman who loved her robe cupboard, her jewel-case, and 
her bed. Moreover, she pretended some affection for the 
Lord Flavian her husband, perhaps arrogance of ownership, 
seeing that Dame Duessa was very determined to keep him 
in bonded compact with herself. She suspected that the 
man did not consider her a saint, or worship her as such. 
Yet, termagant that she was. Dame Duessa could suffer 
some trampling of empty sentiment, provided Fate did not 
rob her of her share in the broad demesne and rent-roll of 
Gambrevault. 

Avalon was a castle of ten towers, linked by a strong 
curtain wall, and built about a large central court and 
garden. A great moat circled the whole, a moat broad 
and silvery as a lake, with water-lilies growing thick in 
the shallows. Beyond the moat, sleek meadows tufted 
with green rushes swept to the gnarled piers of the old 
oaks that vanguarded the forest. The black towers 
slumbered in a mist of green, girded with sheeny water, 
tented by the azure of a southern sky. 

Dame Duessa, being a lady of silks and tissues, did not 
love the place with all her soul. Avalon of the Orchards 
was dull, and smacked of Arcady ; it was far removed from 
that island of fair sin, Lauretia, the King's city. Moreover, 

102 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


103 


the Lord Flavian and his ungallant gentlemen held rigor- 
ously to the northern turrets, leaving her to lodge ascetic- 
ally in her rich chamber in a southern tower. 

Her husband contrived to exile himself as far as Castle 
Avalon could suffer him. If the pair went to mass, they 
went separately, with the frigid hauteur of an Athanasius 
handing an Aryus over to hell. When they hunted they 
rode towards opposite stars. No children had chastened 
them, pledges of heaven-given life. The Lady Duessa 
detested ought that hinted at caudle, swaddling-clothes, 
and cradles. Moreover, all Avalon seemed in league with 
the Lord Flavian. Knights, esquires, scullions, horse-boys 
swore by him as though he were a Bayard. Dame Duessa 
could rely solely on a prig of a page, and a lady-in-wait- 
ing who wore a wig, and perhaps on Fra Balthasar, the 
Dominican. 

Meanwhile, the Lord of Avalon had been putting forth 
his penitence in stone and timber, and an army of crafts- 
men from Geraint. The glade in Cambremont wood rang 
to the swing of axes and the hoarse groaning of the saw. 
The tower had been purged of its ashes, its rooms re- 
timbered, its casements filled with glass. A chapel was 
springing into life under the trees ; the cleverest masons of 
the south were at work upon its pillars and its arches. Fra 
Balthasar, the Dominican, held sway over the whole, subtle 
in colour and the carving of stone. Flavian could have 
found no better pander to his penitence. Rose nobles had 
been squandered. Frescoes, jewel bright, were to blaze out 
upon the walls. The vaulted roof was to be constellated 
with glimmering gold stars, shining from skies of purple 
and azure. 

To turn to Fulviac's great cliff hid in the dark depths of 
the forest of pines. The disloyal chaff of the kingdom 
was wafted thither day by day, borne on the conspiring 
breeze. The forest engulfed all comers and delivered 
them like ghosts into Fulviac’s caverns. An army might 
have melted into the wilds, and the countryside have been 


104 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


none the wiser. Amid the pines and rocks of the clifFs 
there were marchings and countermarchings, much shoul- 
dering of pikes and ordering of companies. Veterans who 
had fought the infidels under Wenceslaus, drilled the raw 
levies, and inculcated with hoarse bellowings the rudiments 
of military reason. They were rough gentlemen, and 
Fulviac stroked them with a gauntlet of iron. They were 
to attempt liberty together, and he demonstrated to them 
that such freedom could be won solely by discipline and 
soldierly concord. The rogues grumbled and swore behind 
his back, but were glad in their hearts to have a man for 
master. 

To speak again of the girl Yeoland. That March night 
she had met Fulviac over the wreckage of the broken gate, 
and had made a profession of the truth, so far, she said, as 
she could conjecture it. She had been long in the forest, 
had returned to the clifF to find the guards slain, and the 
Lord Flavian gone. By some device he had escaped from 
his shackles, slain the men, and fled by the northern pos- 
tern. The woman made a goodly pretence of vexation of 
spirit over the escape of this reprobate. She even taunted 
Fulviac with foolhardiness, and lack of foresight in so 
bungling her vengeance. 

The man’s escape from the clifF roused Fulviac’s ener- 
gies to full flood. The aristocrat of Avalon was ignorant 
of the volcano bubbling under his feet, yet any retaliatory 
meddling on his part might prove disastrous at so critical 
an hour. Fulviac thrust forward the wheels of war with a 
heavy hand. The torrents of sedition and discontent were 
converging to a river of revolt, that threatened to crush 
tyranny as an avalanche crushes a forest. 

The Virgin with her moon-white face still inspired 
Yeoland with the visionary behest given in the ruined 
chapel. The girl’s fingers toiled at the scarlet banner; 
she spent half her days upon her knees, devout as any 
Helena. She knew Fulviac’s schemes as surely as she did 
the beads on her rosary. The rough rangers of the forest 


LOV£ AMO£^G THE RUINS IO5 

held her to be a saint, and knelt to touch her dress as she 
passed by. 

Yet what are dreams but snowflakes drifting from the 
heavens, now white, now red, as God or man carries the 
lamp of love ? The girPs ecstasy of faith was but a potion 
to her, dazing her from a yet more subtle dream. A faint 
voice summoned her from the unknown. She would hear 
it often in the silence of the night, or at full noon as she 
faltered in her prayers. The rosary would hang idle on 
her wrist, the crucifix melt from her vision. She would 
find her heart glowing like a rose at the touch of the sun. 
Anon, frightened, she would shake the human half of her- 
self, and run back penitent to her prayers. 

It was springtide and the year’s youth, when memories 
are garlanded with green, and romance scatters wind- 
flowers over the world. Many voices awoke, like the 
chanting of birds, in Yeoland’s heart. She desired, even 
as a swallow, to see the old haunts again, to go a pilgrim 
to the place where the dear dead slept. Was it yearning 
grief, or a joy more subtle, the cry of the wild and the 
voice of desire? Mayhap white flowers shone on the 
tree of life, prophetic of fruit in the mellow year. Jaspar 
the harper heard her plea ; ’twas wilful and eager, but what 
of that ! Fulviac, good man, had ridden to Gilderoy. 
The girl had liberty enough and to spare. She took it 
and Jaspar, and rode out from the cliff. 

Threading the sables of the woods, they came one noon 
to the open moor. It was golden with the western sun, 
solitary as the sea. The shadows were long upon the 
sward when Cambremont wood billowed out in its valley. 
There was no hope of their reaching the tower before 
dusk, so they piled dead bracken under a cedar, where the 
shelving eaves swept to the ground. 

They were astir early upon the morrow, a sun-chastened 
wind inspiring the woodlands, and sculpturing grand friezes 
from the marbles of the sky. The forest was full of the 
glory of Spring, starred with anemones and dusted with the 


I06 LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 

azure campaniles of the hyacinth horde. Primroses lurked 
on the ‘lush green slopes. In the glades, the forest peri- 
styles, green gorse blazed with its constellations of gold. 

To the dolt and the hag the world is nothing but a fat 
larder; only the unregenerate are blind of soul. Beauty, 
Diana-like, shows not her naked loveliness to all. The 
girl Yeoland’s eyes were full of a strange lustre that May 
morning. Many familiar landmarks did she pass upon the 
way, notched deep on the cross of memory. There stood 
the great beech tree where Bertrand had carved his name, 
and the smooth bark still bore the scars where the knife 
had wantoned. She forded the stream where Roland’s 
pony had once pitched him into the mire. Her eyes grew 
dim as she rode through the sun-steeped woods. 

The day had drawn towards noon when they neared 
the glade in the midst of Cambremont wood. Heavy wain 
wheels had scarred the smooth green of the ride, and the 
newly-sawn pedestals of fallen oaks showed where wood- 
men had been felling timber. To Jaspar the harper these 
signs were more eloquent of peril than of peace. He began 
to snuff the air like an old hound, and to jerk restless 
glances at the girl at his side. 

“See where wheels have been,” he began, 

“ And axes, my friend.” 

“ What means it ? ” 

“ Some one rebuilds the tower.” 

The harper wagged his head and half turned his horse 
from the grass ride. 

“ Have a care,” he said. 

“ Hide in the woods if you will.” 

She rode on with a triumphant wilfulness and he followed 
her. 

As they neared the glade, the noise of axe and hammer 
floated on the wind, and they saw the scene flicker towards 
them betwixt the great boles of the trees. The tower stood 
with battlements of fresh white stone ; its windows had been 
reset, the blasting touch of fire effaced from the walls. The 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


107 


glade was strewn with blocks of stone and lengths of tim- 
ber ; the walls of a chapel were rising from the grass. Men 
were digging trenches for the foundations of the priest’s 
cell. Soldiers idled about gossiping with the masons. 

There was a smile in the girl’s eyes and a deeper tint 
upon her cheeks as she stared betwixt the trees at the 
regarnished tower. Those grey eyes had promised the 
truth in Fulviac’s cavern. She was glad in her heart of 
the man’s honour, glad with a magic that made her colour. 
As for the harper, he stroked his grey beard and was mute. 
He lacked imagination, and was no longer young. 

On a stump of an oak tree at the edge of the wood sat a 
man in a black mantle and a habit of white cloth. He had 
a panel upon his knee, and a small wooden chest beside him 
on the grass. His eyes were turned often to the rolling 
woods, as his plump hand flourished a brush with nervous 
and graceful gestures. 

Seeing the man’s tonsure, and his dress that marked him 
a Dominican, Yeoland rode out from the trees, casting her 
horse’s shadow athwart his work. The man looked up 
with puckered brow, his keen eye framing the girl’s figure 
at a glance. It was his destiny to see the romantic and 
the beautiful in all things. 

The priest and the girl on the horse eyed each other a 
moment in silence. Each was instinctively examining the 
other. The churchman, with an approving glint of the 
eye, was the first to break the woodland silence. 

“ Peace be with you, madame.” 

His tone hinted at a question, and the girl adopted there- 
with an ingenuous duplicity. 

“ My man and I were of a hunting party,” she said ; 
‘‘we went astray in the wood. You, Father, will guide 
us ? ” 

“ Madame has not discovered to me her desire.” 

“ We wish for Gilderoy.” 

Balthasar rose and pointed with his brush towards the 
ride by which they had come. He mapped the road for 


io8 


LOV£ AMONG THE RUINS 


them with sundry jaunty flourishes, and much showing of 
his white teeth. Yeoland thanked him, but was still 
curious. 

“ Ah, Father, whither have we wandered ? ” 

“ Men call it Cambremont wood, madame.” 

“ And these buildings ? A retreat, doubtless, for holy 
men.” 

Balthasar corrected her with much unction. 

“ The Lord Flavian of Avalon builds here,” he said, 
“but not for monks. I, madame, am his architect, his 
pedagogue in painting.” 

Yeoland pretended interest. She craned forward over 
her horse’s neck and looked at the priest’s panel. The act 
decided him. Since she was young and comely, Balthasar 
seized the chance of a chivalrous service. The girl had 
fine eyes, and a neck worthy of a Venus. 

“ Madame has taste. She would see our work ? ” 

Madame appeared very ready to grant the favour. 
Balthasar put his brushes aside, held the girl’s stirrup, and, 
unconscious of the irony of the act, expatiated to Yeoland 
on the beauties of her own home. At the end of their 
pilgrimage, being not a little bewitched by such eyes and 
such a face, he begged of her the liberty of painting her 
there and then. ’Twas for the enriching of religious art, 
as he very properly put it. 

Dead Rual’s grave was not ten paces distant, and Jaspar 
was standing by it as in prayer. Thus, Yeoland sat to Fra 
Balthasar, oblivious of him indeed as his fingers brought her 
fair face into being, her shapely throat and raven hair. 
His picture perfected, he blessed her with the unction of a 
bishop, and stood watching her as she vanished down the 
southern ride, graceful and immaculate as a young Dian. 


XV 


Hardly had an hour passed, and Fra Balthasar was still 
touching the study he had made of Yeoland’s face, when 
a company of spears flashed out by the northern ride 
into the clearing. At their head rode a knight in harness 
of burnished steel, a splendid figure flashing chivalry in the 
eyes of the sun. On his shield he bore “ a castle, argent, 
with ports voided of the field, on a field vert,” the arms of 
the house of Gambrevault. His surcoat was diapered 
azure and green with three gold suns blazoned thereon. 
His baldric, a splendid streak of scarlet silk, slashed his 
surcoat as with blood. His troop, men in half armour, 
rode under the Pavon Vert of the demesne of Avalon. 

They thundered into the open stretch of grass with a 
clangorous rattle of steel. Flavian, bare-headed, for his 
salade hung at his saddle-bow and he wore no camail, 
scanned the glade with a keen stare. Seeing Fra Balthasar 
seated under a tree, he turned his horse towards him, and 
smiled as the churchman put his tools aside and gave him 
a benediction. The man made a fine figure ; judged by 
the flesh, Balthasar might have stood for an Ambrose or a 
Leo. 

“ Herald of heaven, how goes the work ? ” 

“ Sire, we emulate Pericles.” 

“ What have you there, a woman’s head, some rare 
Madonna ? ” 

Balthasar showed his white teeth. 

‘‘ A pretty pastoral, messire. The study of a lady who 
had lost her way hunting, and craved my guidance this 
morning. A woman with the face and figure of a Dian.” 

“ Ha, rogue of the brush, let us see it.” 

109 


no 


LOV£ AMONG THE RUINS 


Balthasar passed the parchment into the other’s hand. 
Flavian stared at it, flushed to the temples, rapped out an 
ejaculation in ecclesiastic Latin. His eyes devoured the 
sketch with the insatiable enthusiasm of a lover; words 
came hot off his tongue. 

“ Quick, man, quick, is this true to life ? ” 

‘‘ As ruby to ruby.” 

“ None of your idealisations ? ” 

“ Messire, but an hour ago that girl was sitting her 
horse where your destrier now stands.” 

“ And you sketched this at her desire ? ” 

“ At my own, sire ; it was courtesy for courtesy : I had 
shown her our handiwork here.” 

“ You showed her this tower and chapel ? ” 

“ Certainly, sire.” 

“ She seemed sad ? ” 

“ Nay, merry.” 

“ This is romance ! ” He lifted the little picture at 
arm’s length to the sun, kissed it, and put it in his bosom. 
His face was radiant ; he laughed as though some golden joy 
rang and resounded in his heart. 

‘‘ A hundred golden angels for this face ! ” 

Fra Balthasar was in great measure mystified. The 
Lord of Avalon seemed an inflammable gentleman. 

“ Messire, you are ever generous.” 

‘‘Man, man, you have caught the one woman in the 
world.” 

cc Sire ” 

“The Madonna of the Pine Forest, the Madonna of 
Mercy ; she whose kinsfolk were put to the sword by 
my men ; even the daughter of Rual whose tower stands 
yonder.” 

The priest comprehended the whole in a moment. 
The dramatic quaintness of the adventure had made him 
echo Flavian’s humour. He laughed and shrugged his 
shoulders. 

“ Romance, romance ! By all the lovers who ever 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


III 


loved, by Tristan and the dark Iseult, by Launcelot and 
Guinivere, follow that picture.” 

“ Which way went she ? ” 

“ By the southern ride, towards Gilderoy.” 

The man was in heroic humour; his sword flashed out 
and shook in the sun. 

“ By God, I’ll see her face again, and yet again, though 
I burn in hell for it. Roland, Godamar, come, men, 
come, throw away your spears. Ride, ride, we chase the 
sunset. Life and desire ! ” 

He sprang away on his great bay horse, a shimmering 
shaft of youth — youth that flashed forth chivalry into the 
burgeoning green of Spring. The sunlight webbed his 
hair with gold ; his face glowed like a martyr’s. Balthasar 
watched him with much poetic zest, as he swept away 
with his thundering knights into the woods. 

The friar settled to his work again, but it was fated that 
he was to have no lasting peace that morning. He was 
painting in a background, a landscape, to a small Cruci- 
fixion. His hand was out of touch, however; the subject 
was not congenial. A pale face and a pair of dusky eyes 
had deepened a different stream of thought in the man. 
Themes hypersensuous held his allegiance ; from prim 
catholic ethics, he reverted to his glorious paganism with 
an ever-broadening sense of satisfaction. 

He was interrupted once more, and not unpleasantly, 
by a lady, with two armed servants at her back, riding in 
from the forest by the northern ride. The woman was 
clad in a cloak of damask red, and a jupon of dark green, 
broidered with azure scroll work. Her hood, fallen back, 
showed her purple black hair bound up in a net of gold. 
Her large dark eyes flashed and smouldered under their 
long lashes. She had high cheek-bones, a big nose, lips 
full as an over-ripe rose. She was big of body, voluptuous 
to look upon, as an Eastern odalisque, a woman of great 
passions, great appetites. 

Fra Balthasar tumbled his brushes and paints aside, and 


II2 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


went to meet her as she rode over the grass. There 
was a smile on the man’s lips, a flush upon his sleek face, 
as he walked with a courtly and debonair vanity. The 
woman caught sight of him and wheeled her horse in his 
direction. The autumn splendour of her cheeks told of 
hard riding, and her horse dropped foam from his black 
muzzle. 

Fra Balthasar crossed himself with much meekness. 

“ Good greeting, Madame Duessa,” were his words, as 
he kept his eyes on the ground. 

The woman scanned the glade with the strenuous spirit 
of a Boadicea. 

“ My Lord Flavian ? ” 

“ Madame ? ” 

He has been here.” 

“ But is here no longer.” 

‘‘ These buildings ” 

“Are the Lord Flavian’s.” 

“ And you ? ” 

“ I am his architect.” 

“ Morally, messire monk ? ” 

“ Madame, I do not edificate souls.” 

The woman stared him over with a critical comprehen- 
siveness. 

“ Balthasar.” 

The man half glanced at her. 

“ Look me in the face.” 

He gave a sigh, made a gesture with his hands, 
looked melancholy and over-ecstasied to the point of 
despair. 

“ Madame, there are thoughts beyond one’s liberty.” 

“ Well?” 

“ There are women, a woman, one dares not look 
upon. There are eyes, well — well, that are too bright. 
Pardon me, I would serve you.” 

She took a deep breath, held out her hand to him, a 
big, warm hand, soft and white. The man’s lips 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


II3 

burnt upon it. She touched his cheek and saw him 
colour. 

u Well ? ” 

“ My Lord Flavian is not here.” 

‘‘ But has been. Where now ? ” 

‘‘Away hunting.” 

“ Ha, what ? ” 

“ Madame, what do men hunt and burn for ? ” 

“ Sometimes a stag, a hare, a standard, a woman.” 

“Sometimes — a woman.” 

Balthasar, looking slantwise under half-closed lids, saw 
her eyes flash and her lips tighten. 

“ Which way ? ” 

“ The southern ride, towards Gilderoy.” 

Duessa shook her bridle, and threw one look into 
Balthasar’s eyes. 

“ Remember,” she said, “ remember, a woman loves a 
friend, a true friend, who can tell a lie, or keep a secret.” 

Balthasar watched her ride away. He stood and 
smiled to himself, while his long fingers played with the 
folds of his mantle. Red wine was bounding in his blood, 
and his imagination revelled. He was a poetic person, 
and a poet’s soul is often like tinder, safe enough till the 
spark falls. 

“ Gloria^'' he said to himself with a smirk, “ here’s 
hunting with a vengeance. Two women and a man ! 
The devil is loose. Soul of Masaccio, that woman has 
fine eyes.” 

That day, when the sky was growing red over the 
woods, Flavian and his troop drew close on the heels of 
Yeoland and the harper. The man, for all his heat, had 
kept his horse-flesh well in hand. Once out of Cambre- 
mont wood, they had met a charcoal-burner, who had seen 
Yeoland and her follower pass towards the west. They 
had hunted fast over fell and moor. While not two miles 
behind came Duessa of the Black Hair, biting her lips and 
giving her brute lash and spur with a woman’s viciousness. 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


1 14 

Yeoland, halting on a slope above the pine woods, 
looked back and saw something that made her crane her 
neck and wax vigilant. Out of the wine-red east and the 
twilight gloom came the lightning of harness, the galloping 
gleam of armed men. Jaspar’s blear eyes were unequal to 
the girl’s. The men below were riding hard, half under 
the lea of the midnight pines, whose tops touched the sun- 
set. A half-moon of steel, their crescent closed wood and 
moor. They had the lead in the west j they were mount- 
ing the slope behind. 

Jaspar saw them at last. He was for galloping. Yeo- 
land held him in. 

‘‘ Fool, we are caught. Sit still. We shall gain nothing 
by bolting.” 

A knight was coming up the slope at a canter. 
Yeoland saw his shield, read it and his name. She 
went red under her hood, felt her heart beating, wondered 
at its noise. 

Youth, aglitter in arms, splendid, triumphant ! A face 
bare to the west, eyes radiant and tender, a great horse 
reined in on its haunches, a mailed hand that made the sign 
of the cross ! 

“ Madame, your pardon.” 

He drew Balthasar’s picture from his bosom and held it 
before her eyes. 

“ My torch,” he said, “ that led me to see your face 
again.” 

The girl was silent. Her head was thrown back, her 
slim throat showing, her face turned heavenwards like the 
face of a woman who is kissed upon the lips. 

“ You have seen your home ? ” 

“ Yes, messire.” 

“ God pardon me your sorrow. You see I am no 
hypocrite. I keep my vows.” 

“Yes, messire.” 

“ Madame, let me be forgiven ; you have trusted one 
man, trust another.” 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


II5 

She turned her horse suddenly and began to ride towards 
the black maw of the forest. Her lips were tightly closed, 
and she looked neither to the right nor the left. Flavian, 
a tower of steel, was at her side. Armed men ranged in a 
circle about them. They opened ranks at a sign from 
their lord, and gave the woman passage. 

“ Madame ” 

“ Messire ” 

“ Am I to be forgiven ? ” 

She was mute a moment, as in thought. Then she spoke 
quietly enough. 

“ Yes, for a vow.” 

“ Tell it me.” 

“ If you will never see my face again.” 

He looked at her with a great smile, drew his sword, 
and held the point towards her. 

“ Then give me hate.” 

“ Messire ! ” > 

“ Hate, not forgiveness, hate, utter and divine, that I 
may fight and travail, labour and despair.” 

“ Messire ! ” 

“ Hate me, hate me, with all the unreason of your 
heart. Hate me a hundred times, that I may but leap 
a hundred times into your life. Bar me out that I may 
storm your battlements again and again.” 

“ Are you a fool ? ” 

‘‘ A glorious, mad, inspired fool.” 

They were quite near the trees. Their black masses 
threw a great shadow over the pair. Higher still the sky 
burnt. 

“ Madame, whither do you go ? ” 

“ Where you may not venture, messire.” 

“ God, I know no such region.” 

She flashed round on him with sudden bitterness. 

“ Go back to your wife. Go back to your wife, 
messire ; remember her honour.” 

It was a home-thrust, but it did not shame or weaken 


Il6 LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 

him. He sheathed his sword, and looked at her sadly 
out of his grey eyes. 

“ What a world is this,” he said, when heaven comes 
at last, hell yawns across the path. When summer 
burns, winter lifts its head. Even as a man would grow 
strong and pure, his own cursed shackles cumber him. 
To-night I say no more to you. Go, madame, pray for 
me. You shall see my face again.” 

He let life vanish under the pines, and rode back with 
the -sunset on his armour, his face staring into the rising 
night. His men came round him, silent statues of steel. 
He rode slowly, and met his wife. 

Her eyes were turbulent, her lips red streaks of scorn. 

“ Ha, sire, I have found you.” 

“ Madame, I trust you are well ? ” 

They looked at each other askance like angry dogs, 
as they rode side by side, and the night came down. 
The men left them to themselves, and went on ahead. 
A wind grew gusty over the moor. 

‘‘ Messire, I have borne enough from you.” 

“Madame, is it fault of mine ? ” 

His whole soul revolted from her with an immensity 
of hate. She cumbered, clogged, crushed him. Mad 
brutality leapt in his heart towards her. He could have 
smitten the woman through with his sword. 

“ Five years ago ” she said. 

“ You did the wooing. Damnation, we have been 
marvellously happy.” 

She bit her lip and was white as the moon. 

“ Have a care, messire, have a care.” 

“ Threats, threats.” 

“ Have a care ” 

“ Look at my shield. Have I quartered your arms 
with mine God’s blood, there is nothing to erase.” 

“ Ha ! ” 

“We have no children.” 

“ Go on.” 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


II7 

“ I shall send gold and an embassage to the Pope/’ 

She clenched her hands and could not speak for the 
moment. \ 

“ You dare do this ? ” 

“ I dare ten thousand greater things than this.” 

“ By God, messire.” 

‘‘ By God, woman, am I going down to hell because 
you are my wife ! ” 

She grew quiet very suddenly, a dangerous move in a 
woman. 

“ Very well,” she said, “ try it, dear lord. I am no fool. 
Try it, I am as strong as you.” 

And so they rode on towards Avalon together. 


XVI 


It is impossible for two persons of marked individuality to 
be much together without becoming more or less faceted 
one towards the other. We appeal by sympathy, and in- 
spire by contrast. What greater glory falls to a man’s lot 
than to be chastened by the warm May of some girl’s pure 
heart! Yeoland had felt the force of Fulviac’s manhood; 
the more eternal and holier instincts were being stirred in 
him by a woman’s face. 

The man’s life had been a transmigration. In his 
younger days the world had banqueted him ; new poig- 
nancies had bubbled against his lips in the cup of pleasure. 
Later had come that inevitable weariness, that distaste of 
pomp, the mood that discovers vanity in all things. Finally 
he had set his heart upon a woman, a broken reed indeed, 
and had discovered her a hypocrite, according to the meas- 
ure of her passions. There had been one brief burst of blas- 
phemy. He had used his dagger and had disappeared. There 
had been much stir at the time. A ruby had fallen from 
the King’s crown. Some spoke of Palestine, others of a 
monastery, others of a cubit of keen steel. 

Fulviac had begun life over again. He had fallen back 
upon elemental interests — had gone hungry, fought for 
his supper, slept many a storm out under a tree. The 
breath of the wilderness had winnowed out luxury ; rain 
had scourged him into philosophic hardihood. He had 
learnt in measure that nothing pleases and endures like 
simplicity. Even his ambition was simple in its audacious 
grandeur. 

Now the eyes of the daughter of Rual were like the eyes 
of a Madonna, and she stood in a circle of white lilies like 
the spirit of purity. Fulviac had begun to believe in her a 

ii8 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


II9 

little, to love her a little. She stood above all other women 
he had known. The ladies of the court were superb and 
comely, and marvellously kind, but they loved colour and 
contemned the robe of white. They were like a rich posy 
for a man to choose from, scarlet and gold, azure, damask 
or purple. You could love their bodies, but you could not 
trust their souls. 

As for the girl Yeoland, she was very devout, very en- 
thusiastic, but no Agnes. Her rosary had little rest, and 
with the suspicions of one not utterly sure of herself, she 
had striven to make religion and its results satisfy her soul. 
In some measure she had succeeded. Yet there is ever 
that psychic echo, that one mysterious being, subtle as the 
stars, that may come before Christ in the heart. Trans- 
cendent spirit of idolatry ! And yet it is often heaven- 
sent, seeing that it leads many a soul to God. 

It had become Yeoland’s custom to walk daily in the 
pine wood at the foot of the stairway leading from the 
northern room. She had discovered a quaint nook, a mile 
or more from the clilF, a nook where trees stood gathered 
in a dense circle about a grassy mound capped by a square 
of mouldering stone. It was a grave, nameless and with- 
out legend. Perhaps a hermit had crumbled away there 
under the sods, or the bones of some old warrior slept 
within rusty harness. None knew, none cared greatly. 
Fulviac’s men had hinted at treasure, yet even they were 
kept from desecrating the place by a crude and superstitious 
veneration for the dead. 

She had wandered here one day and had settled herself 
on the grassy slope of the grave. The ribbon of her lute 
lay over her shoulder. A breeze sang fitfully through the 
branches, and a golden haze shimmered down as from 
the clerestory windows of a cathedral. Her lute seemed 
sad when it made answer to her fingers. Thought was 
plaintive and not devotional, if one might judge by the 
mood of the music, and the notes were wayward and 
pathetically void of discipline. 


126 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


It was while the girl thrummed idly at the strings that 
a vague sound floated down to her with the momentary 
emphasis born of a fickle wind. It was foreign to the 
forest, or it would not have roused her as it did. As she 
listened the sound came again from the west. It was 
neither the distant bay of a hound nor a horn’s solitary 
note. There was something metallic about it, something 
musical. When it disappeared, she listened for its recur- 
rence \ when she heard it again, she puzzled over its nature. 

The sound grew clearer at gradual intervals, and then 
ceased utterly. The girl listened for a long while to no 
purpose, and then prepared to forget the incident. The 
decision was premature. She was startled anon by the 
sound breaking out at no great distance. There was no 
doubt as to its nature : it was the clanging of a bell. 

Yeoland wondered who could be carrying such a thing 
in such a place. Possibly some of Fulviac’s men were 
coming home with stolen cattle, and an old bell-wether 
from some wild moorland with them. 

The sound of the bell came very near; it seemed 
close amid the circling ranks of pines. Twigs were 
cracking too, and she heard the beat of approaching 
footsteps. Then her glance caught something visible, a 
streak of white in the shadows, moving like a ghost. 
The thing went amid the trees with the bell mute. The 
girl’s doubts were soon set at rest as to whether she had 
been seen or no. The figure in grey slipped between 
the pines, and came out into the grass circle about the 
grave, cowled, masked, bell at girdle, a leper. 

The girl stared at it with a cold flutter at her heart. 
The thing stood under the boughs motionless as stone. 
The bell gave never a tinkle ; a white chin poked 
forward from under the hood; the masked face was in 
shadow. Then the bell jangled, and a gruff voice came 
from the cowl. 

“ Unclean, unclean ! ” it said; “avoid the white death, 
and give alms.” 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


I2I 


Yeoland obeyed readily enough, put a portion of the 
grave betwixt herself and the leper, fumbled in her pouch 
and threw the man a piece of silver. He came forward 
suddenly into the light, fell on his knees, put his hood 
back, plucked off the mask. 

It was the face of the Lord Flavian of Gambrevault. 

The girl stood and stared at him with unstinted 
astonishment. 

“ You,” she said, “ you ? ” 

“ Madame, I said that you should see my face again,” 

She conceived a sudden impetuous desire to turn and 
leave him on his knees, but some inner potency of 
instinct restrained her. She looked down at the man, 
with no kindling kindness upon her face. She did not 
know what to say to him, how to tune her mood. The 
first thought that rushed into her mind was seized upon 
and pressed into service, discretion or no discretion. 

“ Madman, they will kill you if they find you here.” 

“ No woman ever loved a coward.” 

“ For Heaven’s sake, go away.” 

He rose from his knees and lifted up his frock. The 
girl saw harness and a sword beneath it. This young 
leopard of the southern shores had fettle enough, and 
spirit. He was a mixture of imperturbable determination 
and sanguine Quixotism, as he faced her under the trees. 

“ This dress is privileged ; my bell warns folk away ; 
who would fall foul of a miserable leper ? If this frock 
fails me, I have my sword.” 

She looked at him with the solemnity of a child, hand 
folded in hand. 

“ I cannot understand you,” she said. 

“ Not yet.” 

“ Are you the man whose life I saved ? That breath of 
death on your brow, messire, should have made you thought- 
ful of your soul.” 

“ Let me plead a moment.” 

“ For what ? ” 


122 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


My honour.” 

“ Why your honour ? ” 

‘‘ Because I want you to believe that I have a soul.” 

He was vastly earnest, and his eyes followed her, as 
though she were some being out of heaven. She had never 
seen such a look in a man’s eyes before; it troubled her. 
She questioned her own heart, laughed emptily, and gave in 
to him. 

“We are both mad,” she said, “but go on. I will 
listen for one minute. Keep watch lest any one should 
come upon us suddenly.” 

She sat down on the grass bank, while he stood before 
her, holding his lazar bell by the clapper. 

“ Look at this dress,” he said. 

“ Yes .? ” 

“ It is how I feel in soul when I look at you.” 

She frowned visibly. 

“ If you wax personal, messire, I shall leave you.” 

“ No, no, I will keep to my own carcase, and play the 
egotist. Well, I will be brief. Look at me, I am the first 
lord in the south, master of an army, one of the twelve 
knights of the Order of the Rose.” 

“ Go on.” 

“When I was twenty years old, certain clever people 
found me a wife, a woman five years my senior in time, 
twenty years my superior in knowledge of the world. 
Well, six months had not passed before I hated her, hated 
her with my whole soul. My God, what a thing for a 
boy to begin life with a woman who made him half the 
bounden vassal of the devil ! ” 

“ You seem generous. The faults were all on her 
side.” 

“ Madame, I say nothing against the woman, only that 
she had no soul. We were incompatible as day and night, 
fire and water. The thing crushed the youth out of me, 
made me desperate, and worse, made me old beyond my 
years. I have done my best. I have groped along like a 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


123 


man in the dark, knowing nothing, understanding nothing, 
save that I had a warm heart in me, and that life seemed 
one grim jest. The future had no fire for me ; I drank 
the wine of the present, strove to please my senses, plunged 
into the abysses of the world. Sometimes I tried to pray. 
Sometimes I played the cynic. The eternal beacon of love 
had gone out of my life. I had no sun, no inspiration for 
my soul.” 

She sprang up suddenly, breathing fast like one who is 
near tears. 

“ Why do you speak to me of this ? ” 

“ God knows.” 

His voice was utterly lonely. 

‘‘What am I to you? You have hardly seen me three 
hours in your life. Why do you speak to me of this ? ” 

He put a hai?d to his throat, and did not look at her. 

“ Madame, there are people who come near our hearts in 
one short hour, people who are winter to us to eternity. 
Do not ask me to explain this truth ; as Christ’s death, 
I know it to be true. I trust you. All the logicians of 
the world could not tell me why. I do not know that I 
could bring forward one single reason out of my own 
soul, save that you showed me great mercy once. And 
now — and now ” 

He broke down suddenly, and could not speak. Yeoland 
appealed to him out of the quickness of her fear. 

“ Messire, messire, your promise.” 

“ Let me speak, or I stifle.” 

“ Go, for God’s sake, go ! ” 

He flung his hands towards her with a great outburst of 
passion. 

“ Heaven and God’s throne, you shall hear me to the 
end. Woman, woman, my soul flows to you as the sea 
ebbs to the moon ; deep in the sky a new sun burns ; 
the stars are dust, dust blown from the coffins of the 
dead who loved. Life leaps in me like another chaos. 
All my heart glows like an autumn orchard, and I burn. 


124 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


The world is red with a myriad roses. God’s in the 
heaven, Christ bleeds on quaking Calvary.” 

She ran to him suddenly and seized his wrist. 

« Go !” 

‘‘ I cannot.” 

“ Men are coming, I hear them in the woods, they will 
kill you ! ” 

I hear them too.” 

“ Go, go, for my sake and for God’s.” 

He kissed her sleeve, pulled his cowl down, and fled 
away into the woods. 


XVII 


The Lady Duessa stood in the chapel of water-girded 
Avalon, with Fra Balthasar the Dominican beside her. 
She had slipped in without his noticing her, and had 
watched him awhile in silence at his work. The jingling 
of her chatelaine had brought him at last to a conscious- 
ness of her presence. Now they stood together before 
the high altar and looked at the Madonna seated on her 
throne of gold,'^amid choirs of angel women. 

The Lady Duessa’s intelligence had waxed critical on 
the subject. 

“ You have altered the Virgin’s face,” she said. 

Balthasar stared at his handiwork and nodded. 

“ The former has been erased, the latter throned in her 
stead.” 

The words had more significance for the lady than 
the friar had perhaps intended. A better woman would 
have snubbed him for his pains. As it was, he saw her 
go red, saw the tense stare of her dark eyes, the tighten- 
ing of the muscles of her jaw. She had a wondrous 
strong jaw, had the Lady Duessa. She was no mere 
puppet, no bright-eyed, fineried piece of plasticity. Fra 
Balthasar guessed the hot, passionate power of her soul ; 
she was the very woman for the rough handling of a 
cause, such as the Lord Flavian her husband had roused 
against her. 

“ I suppose,” she said, “ this alteration was a matter of 
art, Balthasar ? ” 

“ A matter of heart, madame.” 

“So?” 


125 


126 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


“ My Lord Flavian commanded it.” 

“ And yonder face is taken from life ? ” 

“ Madame, I leave the inference to your charity.” 

She laughed a deep, cynical laugh, and went wandering 
round the chapel, looking at the frescoes, and swinging a 
little poniard by the chain that linked it to her girdle. 
Balthasar made a pretence of mixing colours on his palette. 
Worldly rogue that he was, he knew women, especially 
women of the Lady Duessa mould. He had a most shrewd 
notion as to what was passing in her mind. Morally, he 
was her abettor, being a person who could always take 
a woman’s part, provided she were pretty. He believed 
women had no business with religion. To Balthasar, like 
fine glass, their frailty was their most enhancing character- 
istic. It gave such infinite scope to a discreet confessor. 

The Lady Duessa strolled back again, and stood by the 
altar rails. 

“ Am I such a plain woman ? ” she asked. 

“ Madame ! ” 

“You have never painted me.” 

“ There are people above the artist’s brush.” 

“ But you paint the Madonna.” 

“ Madame, the Madonna is anybody’s property.” 

« Am I ? ” 

“ God forbid that a poet should speak lightly of beauty.” 

She laughed again, and touching her hair with her fingers, 
scanned herself in a little mirror that she carried at her 
girdle. 

“Tell me frankly, am I worth painting ? ” 

“ Madame, that purple hair, those splendid eyes, the superb 
colour of those cheeks, would blaze out of a golden back- 
ground as out of heaven.” 

She gave a musical little titter. 

“ Heaven, heaven, ha — ha.” 

“ I should be grateful for so transcendent a chance.” 

“And you would do me justice ? ” 

“ Where inspiration burns, there art soars.” 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


127 


“ You would be true ? ” 

“ To the chiselling of a coral ear.” 

“ And discreet ? ” 

“To the curve of a lip.” 

“ And considerate ? ” 

“ My hands arc subtle.” 

“ And your heart ? ” 

“ Is ingenuous as a little child’s.” 

She laughed again, and held out her hands. Balthasar 
kissed the white fingers, crowded with their gems. His 
eyes were warm as water in the sun ; the colours and the 
glimmering richness of the chapel burnt into his brain. 

“You shall paint me,” she said. 

“ Here, madame, here ? ” 

“ No, my own bower is pleasanter. You can reach it 
by my Lord Flavian’s stair in the turret. Here is the key; 
he never uses it now. Avalon has not seen him these six 
days.” 

“ Madame, I will paint you as man never painted woman 
before.” 

Dame Duessa’s bower was a broad chamber on the 
western walls, joining the south-western tower. A great 
oriel, jewelled with heraldic glass, looked over the mere 
with its dreaming lilies, over the green meadows to the 
solemn silence of the woods. 

Calypso’s grotto ! The bower of a luxurious lady in 
a luxurious age ! The snuff of Ind and Araby tingled in 
Balthasar’s nostrils. The silks of China and Bagdad, 
the cloths of Italy, bloomed there; flowers crowded the 
window, the couches, every nook. Blood-red hangings 
warmed the walls. 

The Lady Duessa sat to Balthasar in the oriel, with 
her lute upon her bosom. She was in azure and violet, 
with neck and bosom showing under a maze of gossamer 
gold. Her arms were bare to the shoulder, white, gleam- 
ing arms, subtle, sinuous, voluptuous. Her hair had been 
powdered with gold. Her lips were wondrous red, her 


128 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


eyes dark as wells. Musk and lavender breathed from her 
samites ; her girdle glowed with precious stones. 

Fra Balthasar sat on a stool inlaid with mother-of-pearl 
and ivory. An embroidery frame served him as an easel. 
The man was living under the many-constellationed vault 
of beauty. All the scent and floweriness of the room 
played on his brain ; all the wealth of it pandered to his 
art j all the woman’s splendour made molten wax of his 
being. 

As he painted she sang to him, an old lay of Arthurian 
love, so that he might catch the music in her eyes, and 
watch the deep notes gathering in her throat. He saw 
her bosom sway beneath her lace, saw the inimitable 
roundness of her arms. Often his brush lingered. He 
might gaze upon the woman as he would, drink her 
beauty like so much violet wine, open his soul to the 
opulent summer of her power. His heart was in a sun- 
set mood ; he lived the life of a poet. 

And the green spring grew subtle,” sang the dame. 

With song of birds and laughter, and the woods 
Were white for maying. So fair Guinivere 
Loosed her long hair like rivulets of gold 
That stream from the broad casement of the dawn. 

And her sweet mouth was like one lovely rose. 

And her white bosom like a bowl of flowers ; 

So wandered she with Launcelot, while the wind 
Blew her long tresses to him, and her eyes 
Were as the tender azure of the night.” 

Of such things sang Duessa, while the friar spread his 
colours. 

And then she questioned him. 

‘‘ Love you the old legends, Balthasar ? ” 

“ Madame, as I love life.” 

“ Ah ! they could love in those old days.” 

“ Madame, men can love even now.” 

She put her lute aside, and knelt upon the couch before 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


129 


the window, with her elbows on the cushioned sill. Her 
silks swept close upon her shapely back, her shoulders 
gleamed under her purple hair. In the west the world 
grew redj the crimson kisses of the sunset poured upon 
the ecstasied green woods. The mere was flaked with a 
myriad amber scales. The meadows broidered their broad 
laps with cowslips, as with dust of gold. 

Balthasar.’* 

‘‘ Madame ? ” 

“ Look yonder at the sunset. You must be tired of 
gazing on my face.” 

He rose up like one dazed — intoxicated by colours, 
sounds, and odours. Duessa’s hand beckoned him. He 
went and knelt on the couch at her side, and looked out 
over the flaming woods. 

“ And the other woman ” she said. 

“ The other woman ” 

' “ This Madonna of my lord’s chapel.” 

“Yes.?” 

“ She amuses me ; I am not jealous ; what is jealousy 
to me.? Tell me about her, Balthasar; no doubt it is a 
pretty tale, and you know the whole.” 

“ I, madame .? ” 

“ I, Duessa.” 

« But ” 

“ You are my Lord Flavian’s friend ; he was ever a man 
to be garrulous : he has been garrulous to you. Tell me 
the whole tale.” 

“ Duessa ! ” 

“ Better, better, my friend.” 

She put her hands upon his shoulders, and stared straight 
into his eyes. Her lips overhung his like ripe red fruit. 
Her arms were fragrant of myrrh and violet ; her bosom 
was white as snow under the moon. 

“ Can you refuse me this .? ” 

“ God, madame, I can refuse you nothing.” 


XVIII 


The girl Yeoland saw nothing of the leper for a season. 
For several days she did not venture far into the pine 
forest, and the nameless grave heard not the sound of her 
lute. The third night after the incident, as she lay in 
her room under her canopy of purple cloth, she heard 
distinctly the silver clangour of a bell floating up through 
the midnight silence. She lay as still as a mouse, and 
scarcely drew breath, for fear the man in grey should 
venture up the stairway. The casement was open, with 
a soft June air blowing in like peace. The bell con- 
tinued to tinkle, but less noisily, till it vanished into 
silence. 

Other folk from the cliff* had seen the leper, and 
Yeoland could not claim to have monopolised the gentle- 
man. One of Fulviac’s fellows had seen him one morn- 
ing near the cliff, gliding like a grey ghost among the 
pines. Another had marked him creeping swiftly away 
through the twilight. It was a superstitious age and 
a superstitious region. The figure in grey seemed to 
haunt the place, with the occasional and mournful sound- 
ing of its bell. Men began to gossip, as the ignorant 
always will. Fulviac himself grew uneasy for more 
material reasons, and contemplated the test of a clothyard 
shaft or a bolt upon the leper’s body. The man might 
be a spy, and if the bolt missed its mark it would 
at least serve as a sinister hint to this troublesome 
apparition. 

It was then that Yeoland took alarm into her woman’s 
heart. There was great likelihood of the man ending his 

130 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


I3I 

days under the tree with a shaft sticking fast between his 
shoulders. Though he was something of a madman, she 
did not relish such a prospect. The day after she had 
heard the bell at midnight near the stair she haunted the 
forest like a pixie, keeping constant watch between the 
cliff and the forest grave. Fulviac had ridden out on a 
plundering venture, and she was free of him for the day. 

It was not till evening that she heard the faint signal of 
the bell, creeping down through the gold-webbed boughs 
like the sound of a distant angelus. The sound flew from 
the north, and beckoned her towards the forest grave. 
Fearful of being caught, she followed it as fast as her feet 
could carry her, while the deepening clamour led her on. 
Presently she called the man by name as she ran. His grey 
frock and cowl came dimly through the trees. 

“ At last you are merciful,” was his greeting. 

She stood still and twisted her gown restlessly between 
her two hands. Anarchy showed in her face ; fear, reason, 
and desire were calling to her heart. The intangible touch 
of the man’s soul threw her being into chaos. She feared 
greatly for him, stood still, and could say nothing. Flavian 
put his cowl back, and stood aloof from her, looking in her 
face. 

Seemingly we are both embarrassed,” he said. 

She made a petulant little gesture. He forestalled her in 
speech. 

“ It is best to be frank when life runs deep. I will 
speak the truth to you, and you may treat me as you will.” 

Yeoland leant against a tree, and began to pull away the 
brittle scales of the bark. 

“If you stay here longer, messire ” she began. 

“ Well, madame, what then ? ” 

“ You will be shot like a dog ; you are suspected ; they 
are going to try your leper’s gown with a crossbow bolt.” 

The man smiled optimistically. 

“ And you came to tell me this ? ” 

“Yes.” 


132 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


“ I thank you.” 

The wind moved through the trees ; a fir-cone came 
pattering through the branches and fell at their feet. On 
the cliff a horn blared j its throaty cry came echoing faintly 
through the trees. 

Flavian looked towards the gold of the west. His mood 
was calm and deliberate ; he had his enthusiasms in leash 
for the moment, for there were more mundane matters in 
his mind — matters that were not savoury, however crim- 
son shone the ideal years. 

“ I have thrown down the glove,” he said, “ for good or 
evil, honour or dishonour. I will tell you the whole truth.” 

Yeoland, watching his face, felt her impatient dreads 
goad her to the quick. 

‘‘ Will you talk for ever ? ” she said to him. 

“ Take the core then. I am going to rend my bonds as 
I would rend flax. I have appealed to the Church ; I have 
poured out gold.” 

“To the point, messire.” 

“ I shall divorce my wife.” 

He threw his head back, and challenged the world in 
her one person. Her good favour was more to him than 
the patronage of Pope or King. It was in his mind that 
she should believe the worst of him from the beginning, so 
that in some later season he might not emulate Lucifer, 
toppled out of the heaven of her heart. She should have 
the truth from the first, and build her opinion of him on no 
fanciful basis. Even in this justice to the more sinister 
side of his surroundings, he was an idealist, thorough and 
enthusiastic. 

“ So you must understand, madame, that I am not with- 
out blemishes, not without things that I myself would 
rather see otherwise. With me it is a question of going to 
hell for a woman, or getting rid of her. Being an egotist, 
I choose the latter alternative.” 

Yeoland still evaded his eyes. 

“ And the woman loves you ” 


LOV£ AMONG THE RUINS 


133 


“ Not an atom ; she only cares to be called the Lady of 
Gambrevault, Signoress of Avalon, the first dame in the 
south.” 

“ Why do you tell me this ? ” 

“ Madame, have I need of more words ? It is for this : 
that you might not picture me as I am not, or form any 
false conception of me. I have bared my moral skeleton 
to you. Perhaps you will never know what it costs a man 
at times to make his mind as glass to the woman he hon- 
ours above the whole world.” 

“ Well ? ” 

‘‘ It is because I honour you that I have goaded myself 
to tell you the whole truth.” 

Her verdict was more sudden and more human than he 
might have expected. 

“ Messire, you are a brave man,” she said ; “ I believe I 
am beginning to trust you.” 

The sky flamed into sunset ; the tracery of the trees 
seemed webbed with gold into shimmering domes and fans of 
quivering light. In the distance, the great cliff stood out 
darkly from the scarlet caverns of the west. The pine tops 
rose like the black spires of some vast city. Above, floated 
clouds, effulgent mounts of fire, hurled from the abysmal 
furnace of the sun. 

Flavian came two steps nearer to the woman, leaning 
against the tree. 

“ Give me my due,” he said ; “ I have uncovered the 
difficult workings of my heart, I have shown you the inner 
man in his meaner mould. Suffer me to speak of my man- 
hood in godlier words. I have shown you Winter; let me 
utter forth Spring.” 

Yeoland turned and faced him at last. 

“ You have risked your life and my honour long enough,” 
she said, “ I am going back to the cliff.” 

“ And I with you, as far as the stairway.” 

“To the threshold of death.” 

“ What care I if I tread it at your side ? ” 


134 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


She turned homewards with obstinate intent, and the 
mild hauteur of a good woman. The man followed her, 
went with her step for step, looking in her face. 

“ Hear my confession,” he said ; “ you shall have it be- 
fore you leave me. For the sake of your honour, I hold 
my soul by the collar. But — but, I shall win liberty, 
liberty. When I am free, ah, girl, girl, I shall flash golden 
wings in the face of the sun. I shall soar to you that I 
may look into your eyes, that I may touch your hands, and 
breathe the warm summer of your soul. I want God, I 
want purity, I want the Eternal peace, I want your heart. 
I have said the whole ; think of me what you will.” 

Twilight had gathered ; all the violet calmness of the night 
came down upon the world. Under the shadows of the tall 
trees, the girl was deeply stirred beyond her own compassion. 
She halted, hesitated, went suddenly near the man with her 
face turned heavenwards like a new-spread flower. Her 
eyes were very wistful, and she spoke almost in a whisper. 

“ You have told me the whole truth, you have shown 
me your whole soul ? ” 

“ As I serve you, madame, I have kept nothing back.” 

“ Ah, messire, I will speak to you the truth in turn. 
God be merciful to me, but you have come strangely 
near my heart. These are bitter words for my soul. 
Ah, messire, if you have any honour for me, trust me 
that I aspire to heaven. I cannot suffer you to come 
deeper into my life.” 

The man held out his hands. 

“ Why, why ? ” 

“ Because in following me, you go innocently to your 
death.” 

He lifted up his arms, and leapt into heroics like an 
Apollo leaping into a blood-red sky. 

“ What care I ; you speak in riddles ; can I fear death ? ” 

“ Messire, messire, it is the woman who fears. I tell 
you this, because, because — God help me ” 

She fled away, but that night he did not follow her. 


XIX 


As a wind sweeps clamorous into a wood, so Modred 
and his fellows, household knights, streamed into the great 
hall of Avalon, where the Lord Flavian sat at supper. 
Bearers of angry steel, fulminators of vengeance, vocifer- 
ous, strong, they poured in through the screens like a 
mill race, bearing a ^tossed and impotent figure in their 
midst. Their swords yelped and flashed over this bruised 
fragment of humanity. 

A gauntlet of steel was dashed often into the white face. 
Hands clawed his collar, clutched his body. Dragged, 
jerked onwards, buffeted, beaten to his knees, he sank 
down before the Lord Flavian’s chair, blood streaming 
from his mouth and nostrils, specking his white habit, 
drabbling the floor. Then only did the flashing, growling 
circle recede like waves from a fallen rock. 

Modred, a black man, burly, a bigot to honour, stood 
out a giant before his fellows. His great sword quivered 
to the roof ; his deep voice shook the rafters. 

“ Blood, sire, blood.” 

The man in the white habit quailed, and held up his 
hands. 

“ Let me smite him as he kneels.” 

“ Sirs, give me the courtesy of silence.” 

Flavian started from his chair and looked at the man, 
who knelt, huddled into himself, at his feet. It was a 
scene replete with the grim cynicism of life. Here was 
a man of mind and genius, cowering, quivering before 
the strong wrath of a dozen muscular illiterates. Here 
was the promulgator of bold truths, an utter dastard when 

135 


136 


LOF£ AMONG THE RUINS 


the physical part of him was threatened with dissolution. 
Not that this event was any proof against the moral power 
of pagan self-reliance. Not that there was any cause for 
the bleating of sanctimonious platitudes, or the pointing 
of a proverb. A true churchman might have carved a 
fine moral fable out of the reality. It would have been 
a fallacy. Fra Balthasar was a coward. He had none of 
the splendid mental anatomy of a Socrates. He would 
have played the coward even under the eye of Christ. 

Silence had fallen. Far away, choked by the long throats 
of gallery and stair, rose the wild, passionate screaming of 
a woman. It had the rebellious, blasphemous agony of one 
flung into eternal fire. Without modulation, abatement, or 
increase, malevolent, impotent, ferocious, piteous, it pealed 
out in long, tempestuous bursts that swept into the ears 
like some unutterable discord out of hell. 

The kneeling man heard it, and seemed to contract, to 
shrink into himself. His white habit was rent to the mid- 
dle; his ashy face splashed over with blood. He tottered 
and shook, his hands clasped over the nape of his neck, for 
fear of the sword. His tongue clave to his palate ; his eyes 
were furtively fixed on the upreared yard of steel. 

Torches and cressets flared. Servants stared and shoul- 
dered and gaped in the screens; all the castle underlings 
seemed to have smelt out the business like the rats they 
were. Modred’s knights put them out with rough words 
and the flat of the sword. The doors were barred. Only 
Flavian, the priest, and Modred and his men took part in 
that tribunal in the hall of Avalon. 

Flavian stood and gazed on Balthasar, the man of tones 
and colours. The Lord of Gambrevault was calm, un- 
hurried, and dispassionate, yet not unpleased. The man’s 
infinite abasement and terror seemed to arrest him like 
some superb precept from the lips of a philosopher. He 
had the air of a man who calculates, the look of a diplomat 
whose scheme has worked out well. From Balthasar he 
looked to Modred the Strong, the torchlight lurid on his 


LOV£ AMONG THE RUINS 


137 


armour, his great sword quivering like a falcon to leap 
down upon its prey. The distant screaming, somewhat 
fainter and less resolute, still throbbed in his ears. He 
thought of Dante, and the holgias of that superhuman 
singer. 

Going close to the Dominican, he spoke to him in 
strong, yet not unpitying tones. Balthasar dared not look 
above the Lord Flavian’s knees. 

“ Ha, my friend, where is all your fine philosophy .? ” 

The man cringed like a beggar. 

“ Where are all your sonorous phrases, your pert blas- 
phemies, your subtleties, your fine tinsel of intellect and 
vanity ? ” 

Balthasar had no word. 

‘‘ Where is your godliness, my friend, where your glow- 
ing and superhuman soul ? Have we found you out, O 
Satanas ; have we shocked your pagan heroism ? Be a 
man. Stand up and face us. You could hold forth 
roundly on occasions. Even that Saul of Tarsus was not 
afraid of a sword.” 

Balthasar cowered, and hid his face behind his hands. 
He began to whimper, to rock to and fro, to sob. The 
grim men round him laughed, deep-chested, iron, scoffing 
laughter. Modred pricked the priest’s neck with the point 
of his sword. It was then that Balthasar fell forward upon 
his face, senseless from sheer terror. 

Flavian abandoned philosophic irony, and addressed him- 
self to Modred and his knights. 

‘‘ Put up your swords, sirs ; this man shall go free.” 

“ Sire, sire ! ” came the massed cry. 

“ Trust my discretion. The fellow has done me the 
greatest service of my life.” 

“Sire!” 

“ He has given me liberty. He has gnawed the shackles 
from my soul. You are all my witnesses in this, and may 
count upon my gratitude. But this man here, he has 
danced to my whim like a doll plucked by a string. For 


138 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


my liberty has he sinned ; out of Avalon shall he go 
scatheless.” 

The men still murmured. Modred shot home his sword 
into its scabbard with a vicious snap. Flavian read their 
humour. 

“ Do not imagine, gentlemen,” he said, ‘‘ that your 
vigilance and your loyalty to my honour can go unrewarded. 
Modred, your lands are heavily mortgaged, I free you at a 
word, with this my signet. To you, Bertrand, I give the 
Manor of Riesole to keep and hold for you and yours. To 
all you, good friends, I give a hundred golden angels, man 
and man. And now, sirs, as to madame, my wife.” 

They gathered round him in curious conclave, Balthasar 
lying in their midst. 

‘‘ Sir Modred, you will order out my state litter, set the 
Lady Duessa therein, and have her borne with all courtesy 
to Gilderoy, to her father’s house. Then you will take 
these gentlemen who are my true friends and witnesses, and 
you will ride to Lauretia, to make solemn declaration before 
Bishop Hilary. He has already received my earlier embas- 
sage. After this affair, we have no need of ethical subtleties 
and clerical conveniences. You will obtain a dispensation 
at his hands. Ex vinculo matrimonii. Nothing less than that.” 

They bowed to him and his commands, like the loyal 
gentlemen they were. Modred pointed to the prostrate 
Balthasar, who was already squirming back to consciousness, 
with his fingers feeling at his throat, as though to discover 
whether it was still sound or no. 

“ And this fellow, sire ? ” 

“ Pick him up.” 

Balthasar had found his tongue at last. He was jerked 
to his feet, and held up by force, with the handle of a 
poniard rammed into his mouth to stem his garrulity. 

Flavian read him an extemporary lecture. There was 
something like a smile hovering about his lips. 

“ Go back to your missal, man, and forswear women. 
They are like strong wine, too much for your flimsy brain. 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


139 


I have more pity for you than censure. Say to yourself, 
when you patter your prayers, ‘ Flavian of Gambrevault 
saved me from the devil once.’ And yet, my good saint, 
I have a shrewd notion that you will be just as great a fool 
two months hence.” 

The man gave a scream of delight, and attempted to 
throw himself at Flavian’s feet. His superlative joy was 
almost ludicrous. Half a dozen hands dragged him back. 

‘‘ Take him away — who cares for such gratitude ! ” 

As they marched him off, he broke like an imbecile into 
hysterical laughter. Tears streamed from his eyes. He 
mopped his face wi£h the corner of his habit, laughed and 
snivelled, and sang snatches of tavern ditties. So, with 
many a grim jest, they cuffed Fra Balthasar out of Avalon. 

At the end of the drama, Flavian called for tapers, and 
marched in state to the chapel. He knelt before the altar 
and prayed to the Madonna, whose face was the face of 
the girl Yeoland. 


XX 


“ Fulviac, I cannot fasten all these buckles.” 

The man waited at the door of her room, and looked at 
her with a half-roguish smile in his eyes. 

She stood by the window in Gothic armour of a grandly 
simple type, no Maximilian flutings, no Damascening, the 
simple Gothic at its grandest, nothing more. Her breast- 
plate, with salient ridge, was blazoned over with golden 
fleur-de-lis. The pauldrons were slightly ridged j vam- 
brace and rere-brace were beautifully jointed with most 
quaint elbow-pieces. She wore a great brayette, a short 
skirt of mail, but no tassets. In place of cuishes, jambs, 
and solerets, she had a kirtle of white cloth, and laced 
leather shoes. It was light work and superbly wrought ; 
Fulviac had paid many crowns for it from an armourer at 
Geraint. 

Her beauty, mailed and cased in steel, seemed to shine 
upon the man with a new glory. When he had played the 
armourer, she stood and looked at him with a most con- 
scious modesty, a warm colour in her cheeks, eyes full of 
tremulous light, her masses of dark hair rolling down over 
her blazoned cuirass. A hand and a half sword in a gilded 
scabbard, a rich baldric, and a light bassinet lay on the oak 
table. Fulviac took the sword, and belted it to her, and 
slung the baldric over her shoulder. His hands moved 
through her dark hair. For a moment, her eyes trembled 
up at him under their long lashes. He gave the helmet 
into her hands, but she did not wear it. 

A sudden gust of youth seized the man, an old strain of 
chivalry woke in his heart. Grizzled and gaunt, he went 
on his knees in front of her and held up his hands as in 
prayer. There was a warm light in his eyes. 

140 


LOV£ AMONG THE RUINS 


I4I 

“ The Mother Virgin keep you, little woman. May all 
peril be far from your heart, all trouble far from your soul. 
May my arm ever ward you, my sword guard your woman- 
hood. All the saints watch over you ; may the Spirit of 
God abide with you in my heart.” 

It was a true prayer, though Fulviac stumbled up from 
his knees, looking much like an awkward boy. He was 
blushing under his tanned skin, blushing, scarred and bat- 
tered worldling that he was, for his heart still showed gold 
to the knife of Time. Yeoland thought more of him that 
moment than she had done these four months. A shadow 
passed over her face, and she touched her forehead with her 
hand. 

Fulviac, a far-away look in his eyes, was furling her 
great scarlet banner upon its staff. Yeoland spoke to him 
over her shoulder. 

‘‘ I am in your hands,” she said. 

Fulviac smoothed out a crease. 

‘‘ What is your will, you have not yet enlightened me ? ” 

He looked at her gravely for a moment. 

‘‘ You are ours,” he said, “ a woman given to us by 
heaven,” he hesitated, as over a lie ; you are to shine out 
a star, a pillar of fire before the host; every man who 
follows you will know your story ; every man who follows 
you will worship you in his heart. You will inspire us as 
no mere man could inspire ; your blood-red banner will 
wave on heroes, patriots. You will play the comet with 
an army for your tail.” 

Some sudden emotion seemed to sweep over her. She 
stood motionless with clasped hands, looking at her crucifix. 
There was a strange sadness upon her face, a tragic sanc- 
tity, as on the face of a woman who renounces the world, 
and more. For a long while she was silent, as though 
suffering some lustre light out of heaven to stream into her 
heart. Presently she answered Fulviac. 

“ God help me to be strong,” she said, “ God help me 
to bear the burden He has put upon my soul.” 


142 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


“ Amen, little woman.” 

“ And now ? ” 

‘‘ Prosper is preaching to all our men upon the clifF. 
He is telling them your story. I take you now to set you 
before them all, that they may look upon a living Saint. 
I leave the rest to your soul. God will tell you how to 
bear yourself in the cause of the people. Come, let us 
pray a moment.” 

They knelt down side by side before the crucifix, like 
effigies on a tomb. Fulviac’s face was in shadow ; Yeo- 
land’s turned heavenward to the Cross. It was her renun- 
ciation. Then they arose; Fulviac took up the scarlet 
banner, and they passed out together from the room. 

Traversing parlour and guard-room, finding them empty 
and silent as a church, they came by the winding stairway 
in the rock to the hollow opening upon the platform above. 
Two sentinels stood by the rough door. Above and 
around, great stones had been piled up so as to form a 
species of natural battlement. Fulviac, bearing the banner, 
climbed the rocks, and signed to Yeoland to follow. They 
were still within a kind of rude tower, walled in by heaped 
blocks of stone on every side. They were alone save for 
the two sentinels. Above, they saw Prosper the Preacher 
standing on a great square mass of rock, his tall figure out- 
lined against the sky. 

They could see that the man was borne along by the 
strong spirit of the preacher. His arms tossed to the sky 
as he bent forward and preached to those invisible to 
Fulviac and the girl. His oratory was of a fervid, strenu- 
ous type, like fire leaping in a wind, fierce, mobile, pas- 
sionate. They could see him stride to and fro on his 
platform, gesticulate, point to heaven, smite his bosom, 
strike attitudes of ecstasy. His voice rang out the while, 
full of subtle modulations, the pathetic abandonments, the 
supreme outbursts of the orator. Much that he said fell 
deep into the girl’s heart. The man had that strange 
power, that magnetic influence that exists in the individual. 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


143 


defying analysis, yet real as the stirring witchery of great 
music, or as the voice of the sea. 

Anon they saw him fall upon his knees, and lift his 
hands to the heavens. He had cast a quick glance back- 
ward over his shoulder. Prosper had soared to his zenith j 
he had his men listening as for the climax of some great epic. 
Fulviac thrust Yeoland forward up the slope. She under- 
stood the dramatic pause in an instant. Prosper’s words 
had been like the orisons of birds preluding the dawn. She 
climbed the rocks, and stepped out at the kneeling monk’s side. 

The scene below dazed her for the moment. Many 
hundred faces werb turned to her from the slopes at her 
feet. Innumerable eyes seemed fixed upon her with a 
mesmeric stare. She saw the whole cliff below her packed 
with men, every rock crowned with humanity, even the 
pine trees had their living burden. She saw swords waving 
like innumerable streaks of light ; she had a confused 
vision of fanaticism, exultation, power. Deep seemed calling 
unto deep ; a noise like the noise of breakers was in her ears. 

Then the whole grew clear on the instant. The sky 
seemed strangely luminous ; every outline in the land- 
scape took marvellous and intelligent meaning. Strange 
Promethean fire flashed down into her brain. She felt 
her heart leaping, her blood bounding through her body, 
yet her mind shone clear as a crystal grael. 

Below her, she had humanity, plastic, inflammable, tinder 
to her touch. An infinite realisation of power seemed to leap 
in her as at the beck of some spirit wand. She felt all the dim 
heroism of dreams glowing in her like wine given of the gods. 

Holy fire burnt on her forehead and her tongue was 
loosed. She stood out on the great rock, her armour 
flashing in the sun, her face bright as the moon in her 
strength. Her voice, clear and silvery, carried far over cliff 
and wood, for the day was temperate and without a wind. 

“ Look upon me well. I tell you the truth. I am she 
to whom the Madonna appeared from heaven.” 

Great silence answered her, the silence of awe, not of 


144 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


disbelief or disapprobation. Her voice rang solitary as the 
voice of a wood-fay in the wilderness. The huddled men 
below were silent as children whose solemn eyes watch a 
priest before the altar. She spoke on. 

“ I am she whose tale you have heard. God has given me 
to the cause of the poor. To your babes and to your women- 
folk I lift my hands ; from the Mother of Jesus I hold my com- 
mand. Men of the land, will you believe and follow my 
banner ? ” 

A thousand hands leapt to the sun, yet hardly a voice broke 
the silence, the calm as of supreme revelation. All the simple 
mediaeval faith shone in the rough faces ; all the quaint rever- 
ence, the unflinching fidelity, of the unlettered of the age 
shone in their hearts. They were warm earth to the seed 
of faith. 

“ Men of the land, I hear great noise of violence and 
wrong, of hunger and despair. Your lords crush you ; 
your priests go in jewels and fine linen, and preach not 
the Cross. Your babes are slaves even before they see the 
light. Your children, like brute beasts, are bound to the 
soil. Men of the land, give me your strength, give me 
your strength for the cause of God.” 

She drew her sword from its sheath, pressed the blade to her 
lips, held it up to heaven. Her voice rang over rock and tree. 

“ Justice and liberty ! ” 

Her shrill hail seemed to lift the silence from a thousand 
throats. The human sea below gave up its soul to her 
with thundering surges and vast sound of faith. As roar 
followed roar, she stood a bright, silvery pinnacle above 
the black fanaticism beneath, transcendent Hope holding 
her sword to the eternal sun. 

Behind her, Fulviac unwrapped the great scarlet banner 
she had wrought. Its cross of gold gleamed out as he 
lifted the staff with both hands. Prosper, erect and exult- 
ant, stood pointing to its device. Then, in sight of all 
men, he bowed down before the girl and kissed her feet, as 
though she had been some rare messenger out of heaven. 


XXI 


The day had done gloriously till noon, but the sky’s mood 
changed as evening advanced. Clouds were huddled up in 
grey masses by a gathering and gusty wind, and the June 
calm took flight like a girl in a new gown when rain 
threatens. 

By nightfall, a storm held orgy over the cliff. Billow 
upon billow of wind came roaring over the myriad trees. 
The pines were sweeping a murky sky with their black 
brooms, creaking and moaning in chorus. Rain rattled 
heavily, and over the cliff the storm thundered and cried 
with the long wail of the wind over rock and tree. 

In Yeoland’s chamber the lamp flared and smoked, and 
the postern clattered. Rain splashed upon the shivering 
casement ; the carpet breathed restlessly with the draught 
under the door. It was late, yet the girl was still at her 
devotions. Her thoughts were dishevelled and full of dis- 
cords, while between her fingers the beads of her rosary 
moved listlessly, and her prayers were broken by the 
anathemas of the storm. 

The dual distractions of life had come in her to grappling 
point again. She could boast no omnipotence in her own 
heart, and could but give countenance to one of the two 
factions that clamoured for her favour. As her mood 
changed like the mood of a fickle despot none too sure of 
his throne, so tumult and despair were let loose time after 
time into the echoing courts and alleys of her soul. She 
had neither the courage nor the force of will for the 
moment to compel herself either to satisfy her woman- 
hood or sacrifice her instincts to a religious conviction. 

145 


146 


LOFE AMONG THE RUINS 


Man and God held each a half of her being. The man’s 
face outstared God’s face ; God’s law overshadowed the 
man’s. 

She had been carried into the palpitating azure of reli- 
gious exaltation. The world had rolled at her feet. She 
had bathed her forehead in the infinite forethought of 
eternity ; she had heard the stupendous sounding of the 
spheres. Then some mischievous sprite had plucked the 
wings from her shoulders, and she had fallen far into an 
abyss. After spiritual exaltation comes physical depression. 
Neither is a normal state ; neither strictly sane to the intel- 
lect. Peter-like, she had trod the waves ; faith had played 
her false j the waters had gone over her soul. 

As she knelt brooding before her crucifix, under the 
wavering lamp, she was smitten into listening immobility, 
her rosary idle in her hand. A cry had come to her amid 
the multitudinous voices of the storm, a cry like a hail from 
a ship over a tumbling sea at night. 

She waited and wondered. Again the cry rose above 
the babel of the wind. Was it from Fulviac’s room; or a 
sentinel’s shout from the cliff, seized upon and carried by 
the wind with distorting vehemence ? Midnight covered 
the world, and the girl was in an impressionable mood. She 
took the lamp from its bracket and, opening the door, 
peered down the gallery that led to Fulviac’s room. 

A sudden sinister sound made her start back into the 
room, the lamp flashing tremulous beams upon the walls, 
and striking confusion into the shadows. A hand was 
beating heavily upon the postern. 

She set the lamp in its bracket, crept to the door, put 
her ear to the lock and listened. The knocking had 
ceased, and in a momentary lulling of the wind she even 
fancied she could hear the sound of deep breathing. Her 
heart was hurrying, but suspense emboldened her. 

‘‘ Who’s there ? ” 

A sudden gust made such a bluster that her voice died 
almost unheard in the night. There was a vague clangour 


LOFE AMONG THE RUINS 


147 


without, as of arms, and the knocking re-echoed sullenly 
through the room. A lull came again. 

‘‘ Who knocks ” 

This time an answer came back to her. 

“I — Flavian.” 

She caught her breath and shivered. 

“ What do you want at midnight, and in such a 
storm ? ” 

“ Let me in. Open to me.” 

“ No — no.” 

“ Open to me.” 

“ Are you still mad ” 

Silence held a moment. Then the voice rose again, 
with the hoarse moan of the wind for an underchant. 

“ Liberty, liberty, I am free, I am free.” 

She shrank aside against the wall. 

“ The night gave me my chance \ I have men in the 
wood. Let me in.” 

“ Ah, messire.” 

“ I plead for love and my own soul. I come to give 
you life, sword, all. I cannot leave you ; I am in outer 
darkness; you are in heaven. Let me in.” 

She stood swaying like a reed in a breeze. Her brain 
glowed like some rich scheme of colour, some sun-ravished 
garden. The massed moan of a hundred viols seemed 
to sweep over her soul. God, for the courage to be 
weak ! 

“ Yeoland ! Yeoland ! have you no word for me ? ” 

Her hand trembled to the door ; her fingers closed upon 
the key. She hesitated and her dangling rosary caught 
her glance ; sudden revulsions of purpose flooded back ; 
she stumbled away from the door like one about to faint. 

“ I cannot, I cannot,” she said. 

“ I will break down the door.” 

The threat inspired her. 

‘‘ No, no, not thus can you win me.” 

‘‘ I will break in.” 


148 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


Attempt it, and I will call the guard. You will lose 
hope of me for ever. I swear it.” 

Her voice rang true and strong as a sword. With her 
judgment, silence fell again, and ages seemed to crawl 
over the world. When the man spoke again, his voice 
was less masterful, more pathetic. 

‘‘ Have you no hope for me ? ” it said. 

“ I have given you life.” 

What is life without love ? ” 

She sighed very bitterly. 

“ Messire, you do not understand,” she said. 

“ No, you are a riddle to me.” 

“ A riddle that you may read anon ; time will show you 
the truth. I tell you I am given to God. Only in one 
way can you win me.” 

“ Are you solemn over this ? ” 

“ Solemn as death.” 

“Tell me that only way.” 

“ Only by breaking the bonds about my soul, by 
liberating me from myself, by battle and through perils that 
you cannot tell.” 

“ War and the sword ! ” 

“Yet not to-night. You would need ten thousand men 
to take me from this cliff. I advise you for your good. 
Only by great power and the sword can you win your 
desire.” 

“ By God, then, let it be war.” 

An utter sense of loneliness flooded over her. She 
sobbed in her throat, leant against the door, listened, 
waited. The wind roared without, the rain beat upon the 
quaking casement, and she heard the multitudinous moan- 
ing of the pines. No voice companioned her, and the night 
was void. 

A sudden access of passion prompted her. She 
twisted at the key, tore the bolts aside, flung the door 
open. The stairway was empty. Rain whirled in her 
face, as she stood out in the wind, and called the 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 1 49 

man many times by name. It was vain and to no 
purpose. 

Presently she re-entered the room, very slowly, and barred 
the door. Her rosary rolled under her feet. She picked 
it up suddenly and dashed it away into a corner. The face 
on the crucifix seemed to leer at her from the wall. 





PART III 


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XXII 


Aurelius, physician of Gilderoy, flourished on the fatness 
of a fortunate reputation. He was a rubicund soul, clean 
and pleasant, with a neatly-trimmed beard, and a brow that 
seemed to dome a very various and abundant wisdom. He 
combined a sprightly humour and an enlivening presence with 
the reverent solemnity necessary to his profession. 

As for the ladies of Gilderoy, they reverenced Master 
Aurelius with a loyalty that became perhaps less remarkable 
the more one considered the character of the worthy char- 
latan. Aurelius was an iEsculap in court clothing. He 
was ignorant, but as no one realised the fact, the soul of 
Hippocrates would have been wasted in his body. Dis- 
cretion was his crowning virtue. He was so sage, so 
intelligent, so full of a simple understanding for the ways of 
women, that the frail creatures could not love him enough. 
The confidences granted to a priest were nothing compared 
to the truths that were unmasked to his tactful ken. The 
physician is the priest of the body, a privileged person, suf- 
fered to enter the bed-chamber before the solemn rites of 
the toilet have been performed. He sees many strange 
truths, beholds fine and wonderful transfigurations, pre- 
sides over the confessional of the flesh. And Aurelius never 
whispered of these mysteries ; never displayed astonish- 
ment 5 always discovered extraordinary justification for the 
quaintest inconsistencies, the most romantic failings. He 
carried a sweet and sympathetic air of propriety about with 
him, like a perfume that exhaled a most comfortable odour 
of religion. His salves were delectable to a degree, his 
unguents and cosmetics remarkable productions. Dames 

153 


154 


LOFE AMONG THE RUINS 


took his potions in lieu of Malmsey, his powders in place 
of sweetmeats. Never did a more pleasant, a more tactful 
old hypocrite pander to the failings of an unregenerate 
world. 

Aurelius stood in his laboratory one June morning, bal- 
ancing a money-bag in his chubby pink palm. He seemed 
tickled by some subtlety of thought, and wonderfully well 
pleased with his own good-humour. He smiled, locked the 
money-bag in a drawer that stood in a confidential cupboard, 
and, taking his cap and walking-staff, repaired to the street. 
Pacing the narrow pavement like a veritable potentate, pre- 
tentious as any peacock, yet mightily amiable from the 
superb self-satisfaction that roared in him like a furnace, 
he acknowledged the greetings of passers-by with the eleva- 
tion of a hand, a solemn movement of the head. It was 
well to seem unutterably serious when under the eyes of the 
mob. Only educated folk can properly understand levity 
in a sage. 

In the Erminois, a stately highway that ran northwards 
from the cathedral, he halted before a mansion whose win- 
dows were rich with scutcheons and proud blazonry. Aure- 
lius prospered with the rich. The atmosphere of the mean 
quarters was like a miasma to him ; he loved sunlight and 
high places where he might bask like a lizard. He passed 
by a great gateway into the inner court, and was admitted 
into the house with that ready deference that speaks of 
familiarity and respect. 

Aurelius climbed the broad stairway, and sailed like a 
stately carrack into my lady’s chamber. A dame in blue 
and silver greeted him from an oriel. The compounder of 
cosmetics bowed, disposed his staff and velvet cap upon a 
table, and appropriated the chair the lady had assigned to 
him. 

“ Superb weather, madame.” 

“Too sultry, though I am a warm-souled person.” 

“True, madame, true, Gilderoy would be fresher if there 
were no mean folk to stifle up the streets like weeds. The 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 155 

alleys send up such an unpleasant stench upon the breeze, 
that it makes the cultured sense revolt from poverty.” 

The Lady Duessa’s lips curled approvingly,, 

“ Poverty, poverty, my dear Aurelius, is like a carcase, 
fit only for quicklime. If 1 had the rule of the place, I 
would make poverty a crime, and cram all our human 
sweepings into lazar quarters.” 

The man of physic nodded for sympathy. 

“ Exactly so, madame, but one would have to deal with 
the inevitable religious instinct.” 

“ That would be simple enough,” she simpered. “ 1 
should confine religion to shadows and twinkling tapers, 
lights streaming in through enamelled casements upon 
solemn colours bowing before dreamy music ; pardons and 
absolutions bought with a purse of gold. It is sad, Aurelius, 
but who doubts but that religion makes scavengers of us 
all ? Away with your smug widows, your frouzy burgher 
saints, your yellow-skinned priest-hunters ! I would rather 
have picturesque sin than vulgar piety.” 

The man of herbs sighed like an organ pipe. 

“ Everything can be pardoned before coarseness,” he 
said; “give me a dirty heart before a dirty face, provided 
the sinner be pretty. I trust that madame was satisfied 
with my endeavours, that the perfumes were such as she 
desired, the oil of Arabia pleasant and fragrant ? ” 

“ Magical, my ^Tsculap. The oil makes the skin like 
velvet, and the drugs are paradisic and full of languors. 
Ah, woman, set the tray beside Master Aurelius’ chair.” 

The man’s eyes glistened over the salver and the cup. 
He bowed to his hostess, sniffed, and pursed his lips over 
the wine. 

“ Madame knows how to warm the heart.” 

“Truth to you. Who have you been renovating of 
late? What carcase have you been painting, you useful 
rogue ? ” 

“ Madame, my profession is discreet.” 

“ I see your work everywhere. There is the little brown- 


156 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


faced thing who is to marry John of Brissac. Well, she 
needed art severely. Now the lady has a complexion like 
apple-blossom.’’ 

The old man’s eyes twinkled. 

“ Madame is pleased to jest,” he said, “ and to think her 
fancies — realities. Were all ladies as fresh as Madame 
Duessa, what, think you, would become of my delectable 
art, my science of beauty } I should be a poor bankrupt 
old man, ruined by too much comeliness.” 

Aurelius always had the wit to say the pleasantest thing 
possible, and to press the uttermost drop of honey from the 
comb of flattery. A surly tongue will break a man, a glib 
intelligence ensure him a fortune. Aurelius earned many 
a fee by a pretty speech, or a tactful suggestion. Then of 
course he was never hindered by sincerity. 

“ Holy Dominic,” laughed the lady, “ I have proved a 
good patron to you in many ways.” 

“ And I trust I shall always deserve madame’s trust.” 

“A discreet tongue and a comfortable obedience are 
sweet things to a woman, Aurelius.” 

“ Madame’s voice recalls Delphi.” 

‘‘ Ah, the Greeks were poets ; they knew how to fit their 
religion to their pleasures. ’Tis only we, poor fools, who 
measure sin by a priest’s pardon. Give me a torch before 
an aspergill.” 

The man of physic sipped his wine, cogitating over it 
with Jovian wisdom. 

“ The chief aim in life, madame,” he said, “ should be 
the perfecting of one’s own comfort. ’Tis my contention 
that a fat bishop is a finer Christian than a lean friar. 
The truism is obvious. Is not my soul the more lAellif- 
luous and benign if its shell is gilded and its vest of velvet.? ” 

Duessa chuckled, and flipped her chin. 

“ Give me a warm bed,” she laughed, ‘‘ and I will pity 
creation. The world’s saints are plump and comely ; the 
true goddess has a supple knee. Am I the worse for being 
buxom ! ” 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


157 


‘‘ Madame,” said the sage with great unction, ‘‘ only 
beggars denounce gold, and heaven is the dream of dis- 
eased souls. The cult of pleasure is the seal of health. 
Discontent is the seed of religion.” 

The door opened a few inches, and there was the sound 
of voices in muffled debate in the gallery. The Lady 
Duessa listened, rose from her chair, appeared restless. 
The man of physic comprehended the situation, and with 
that tact that characterised him, declared that he had 
patronage elsewhere to assuage. The lady did not detain 
him, but dismissed him with a smile — a smile that on 
such a face as hers often took the place of words. So 
Master Aurelius took his departure. 

Five minutes later Sforza, Gonfaloniere of Gilderoy, 
occupied the vacant chair in the oriel. 

There are many ways to fame. By the broad, em- 
battled gate where the Cerberus of War crouches; by the 
glistening stair of glass where all the beauty of the world 
gleams as in a thousand mirrors ; by the cloaca of diplo- 
macy and cunning, that tunnels under truth and honour. 
Sforza of Gilderoy was a man who never took his finger 
off a guinea till he had seen ten dropped into the other 
palm. He was a narrow-faced, long-whiskered rat, ever 
nibbling, ever poking his keen snout into prospective pros- 
perity. He had no real reverence for anything under the 
sun. To speak metaphorically, he would as soon steal 
the sacrificial wafer from the altar as the cheese from a 
burgher’s larder. When he lived in earnest, he lived in 
moral nebulosity, that is to say, he had no light save his 
own lantern. Publicly, he appeared a sleek, dignified 
person, quick with his figures, apt at oratory, a man who 
could quote scripture by the ell and swear by every saint 
in the calendar. 

Sforza, Gonfaloniere of Gilderoy, sat and faced Dame 
Duessa over a little table that held wine and a bowl of 
roses. His large hands rested on the carved arms of the 
chair. He had a debonair smirk on his face, a mask of 


158 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


complacency that suffered him to be vigilant in a polite 
and courteous fashion. 

“ Madame has considered my proposition ? ” 

The woman leant back in her chair and worked her full 
lower lip against her teeth. 

“ I recognise your infallibility, Gonfaloniere.” 

“ Only to the level of human foresight, madame.” 

“You have a longer nose than most men.” 

“ I take the insinuation as a compliment.” 

He contemplated her awhile in silence. 

“ How am I to know that you are sincere ? ” he said. 

“ Need you disbelieve me ? ” 

“ It is my custom to disbelieve in everybody.” 

“ Till they have satisfied you ? ” 

“ Exactly.” 

Duessa looked out of the window, and played with her 
chatelaine. 

“You know women ? ” 

“ I would never lay claim to such an arrogance of cun- 
ning.” 

“ Nevertheless you are no fool.” 

“ I am no fool.” 

“And you imagine my protestations are not sincere, 
even after what I have suffered ? ” 

He smiled at her most cunningly. 

“ You want proof? ” 

“ I do not like unsigned documents.” 

She started forward in her chair with a strangely strenu- 
ous look on her face. 

“ Fanatic fools have often made some show of fortitude,” 
she said, “by thrusting a hand into the fire, or the like. 
See now if I am a liar or a coward.” 

Before he could stay her she drew a small stiletto from 
her belt, spread her left hand on the table, and then smote 
the steel through the thick of the palm, and held it there 
without flinching as the blood flowed. 

“ My signature,” she said, with her cheeks a shade paler. 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


159 


“ Madame, you have spirit.” 

‘‘ Do you believe in me ? ” 

‘‘ I may say so.” 

“You will include me in your schemes \ ” 

“ I will.” 

“ You remember our mutual bargain ? ” 

“ I remember it.” 

She withdrew the stiletto and wrapped her bleeding 
hand in her robe. 

“ You will initiate me — at once.” 

“To-morrow, madame, you shall go with me to the 
council.” 


XXIII 


Castle Gambrevault stood out on a great cliff above 
the sea, like a huge white crown on the country’s brow. 
It was as fine a mass of masonry as the south could show, 
perched on its great outjutting of the land, precipiced on 
every side, save on the north. Hoary, sullen, stupendously 
strong, it sentinelled the sea that rolled its blue to the black 
bastions of the cliffs. Landwards, green downs swept with 
long undulations to the valleys and the woods. 

That Junetide Gambrevault rang with the clangour of 
arms. The Lord P'lavian’s riders had spurred north, east, 
and west to manor and hamlet, grange and lone moorland 
tower. There had been a great burnishing of arms, a 
bending of bows through all the broad demesne. Steel had 
trickled over the downs towards the tall towers of Gambre- 
vault. Knights, with esquires, men-at-arms, and yeomen, 
had ridden in to keep feudal faith. The Lord Flavian had 
swept the country for a hundred miles for mercenary troops 
and free-lances. His coffers poured gold. He had pitched 
a camp in the Gambrevault meadows ; some fifteen hun- 
dred horse and two thousand foot were gathered under his 
banner. 

From the hills cattle were herded in, and heavy wains 
laden with flour creaked up to the castle. There was 
much victualling, much blaring of trumpets, much blowing 
of pennons, much martial stir in the meadows. It seemed 
as though the Lord Flavian had a strenuous campaign in 
view, and there was much conjecture on the wind. The 
strange part of it was, that none save Sir Modred had any 
knowledge for what or against whom they were to fight, 
i6o 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS l6l 

It might be John of Brissac, Gambrevault’s mortal enemy j 
it might develop into a demonstration against the magis- 
tracy of Gilderoy. Blood was to be spilt, so ran the 
current conviction. For the rest, Flavian’s feudatories 
were loyal, and left the managing of the business to 
their lord. 

The men had been camped a week, and yet there 
was no striking of tents, no plucking up of pennons. 
Sir Modred had ridden out to bring in a body of five 
hundred mercenaries from Geraint. The Lord Flavian 
himself, with a troop of twenty spears, was lodged for 
a few days in Gilderoy, in the great Benedictine mon- 
astery, where his uncle held rule as abbot. He was 
negotiating for arms, fifty bassinets, two hundred gis- 
armes, a hundred ranseurs, fifty glaives, and a number 
of two-handed swords. He had found the Armourer’s 
Guild peculiarly insolent, and disinclined to serve him. 
He had little suspicion that Gilderoy was seething under 
the surface like so much lava. 

Thus, while the Lord Flavian was preparing for his 
march into the great pine forest, Fulviac had completed 
his web of revolt. He had heard of the gathering at 
Gambrevault, and had hurried on his schemes in conse- 
quence. Five thousand men were ready at his back. 
He would gain ten thousand men from Gilderoy; seven 
thousand from Geraint. These outlaw levies, free-lances, 
and train-bands would give him the nucleus of the vast 
host that was to spring like corn from every quarter of 
the land. Malgo was to head the rising in the west, 
and to concentrate at Conan, a little town in the moun- 
tains. In the east, Godamar was to gather a great camp 
in Thorney Isle amid the morasses of the fens. Fulviac 
would himself overthrow the lords of the south. Then 
they were to converge and to gather strength for the 
march upon Lauretia, proud city of the King. 

It would be a great war and a bitter, full of fanatical 
fierceness and revenge. Fulviac had given word to take. 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


162 

pillage, and burn all strong places. Destiny stood with 
wild hands to the heavens, a bosom of scarlet, and hair 
aghast. If the horde conquered, the seats of the mighty 
would reek amid flame ; there would be death, and a great 
silence over proud cities. 


XXIV 


In an antechamber in the palace of Sforza of Gilderoy 
stood the Lady Duessa, watching the day die in the west over 
a black chaos of spires and gables. Before her, under the 
casement, lay the palace garden, a pool of perfume, banked 
with tall cypresses, red with the fire of a myriad roses. 
As night to the sunset, so seemed this antechamber to the 
garden, panelled with black oak, a dark square of gloom 
red-windowed to the west. The place had a sullen, iron- 
mouthed look, as though its walls had developed through 
the years a sour and world-wise silence. 

The Lady Duessa was not a woman who could trail 
tamely in anterooms. A restless temper chafed her pride 
that evening, and kept her footing the polished floor like a 
love-lorn nun treading a cloister. The casements were 
open to the garden, and the multitudinous sounds of the 
city flooded in — the thunder of the tumbrils in the nar- 
row streets, the distant blare of trumpets from the 
castle, the clangour of the cathedral bells. A solitary 
figure companioned the Lady Duessa in the anteroom, 
cloaked and masked as was the dame herself. It was 
Balthasar the Dominican, who followed her now in 
secular habit, having forsworn his black mantle and 
taken refuge in her service. From time to time the two 
spoke together in whispering undertones ; more than once 
their lips touched. 

The Lady Duessa turned and stood by a casement with 
her large white hands on the sill. She appeared to grow 
more restive as the minutes passed, as though the antique 
clock on the mantle clicked its tongue at her each gibing 
second. 

163 


164 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


“ This is insolence,” she said anon, “ holding us idling 
here like ragged clients.” 

Balthasar joined her, soft-footed and debonair, his black 
eyes shining behind his mask. 

“ Peter kept Paul before the gate of heaven,” quoth 
he, with a curl of the lip. “ Sforza is a meddler in many 
matters, a god-busied Mercury. As for me, I am 
content.” 

Their hands touched, and intertwined with a quick 
straining of the fingers. 

“ Pah,” said the woman with a shiver, “ this room is 
like a funeral litter; it chills my marrow.” 

Balthasar sniggered. 

“ See, the sky burns,” he said ; “ yon garden is packed 
with colour. We could play a love chase amid those 
dark hedges of yew.” 

She pressed her flank to his ; her eyes glittered like 
amethysts ; her breath hastened. 

“ My mouth, man.” 

She pouted out her full red lips to his ; suffered his 
arms to possess her; they kissed often, and were out of 
breath. A door creaked. The two started asunder in 
the shadows with an impatient stare into each other’s eyes. 

Sforza the Gonfaloniere s?^od on the threshold, clad 
plainly in a suit of black velvet, with a sword buckled at 
his side. He bowed over Duessa’s hand, kissed her finger 
tips, excusing himself the while for the delay. He was 
very suave, very facile, as was his wont. The Lady 
Duessa took his excuses- with good grace, remember- 
ing their compact, and the common purpose of their 
ambitions. 

“ Gonfaloniere, we wait our initiation.” 

Sforza’s eyes were fixed on Balthasar with a keen and 
ironical glitter. 

“ Very good, madame.” 

“ Remember j Lord Flavian’s head, that is to be my 
guerdon,” 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 1 65 

“ Madame, we will remember it. And this gentleman ? ” 

“ Is the friend of whom I spoke.” 

“ A most loyal friend, methinks ? ” 

“ True.” 

The Gonfaloniere coughed behind his fingers, and spoke 
in his half-husky tenor. 

“You are ready to risk everything ? ” 

Duessa reassured him. 

“Expect no blood and thunder ceremonial,” he said to 
them ; “ we are grim folk, but very simple. Your presence 
will incriminate you both. Be convinced of that.” 

He led them by a little closet into the state-room of the 
palace, a rich chamber lit by many tapers, its doorway held 
by a guard of armed men. Statues in the antique gleamed 
in the alcoves. The panelling shone with gem-brilliant 
colouring. Armoires and carved cabinets stood against the 
walls. The ceiling was of purple, with the signs of the 
Zodiac in gold thereon. 

In the centre of the room, before a slightly raised dais, 
stood a round table inlaid with diverse-coloured stones. 
Scrolls, quills, and inkhorns covered it. Some twoscore 
men were gathered round the table, staring with masked 
faces at a map spread before them — a map showing all 
the provinces of the south, w4th towns and castles marked 
in vermilion ink thereon. A big man in a red cloak stood 
conning the parchment, pointing out with a long forefinger 
certain marches to the masked folk about him. 

Sforza pointed Duessa and Balthasar to a carved bench 
by the wall. 

“ Have the patience to listen for an hour,” he said, turn- 
ing to join the men about the table. 

A silver bell tinkled, and a priest came forward to patter 
a few prayers in Latin. At the end thereof, the masked 
Samson in the red cloak stood forward on the dais with up- 
lifted fist. Instant silence held throughout the room. 
The man in red began to speak in deep, full-throated tones 
that seemed to vibrate from his sonorous chest. 


LOFE AMONG THE RUINS 


1 66 

His theme was the revolt, his arguments, the grim bleak 
facts that bulked large in the brain of a leader of men. He 
dealt with realism, with iron detail, and the strong sugges- 
tions of success. Revolt, in the flesh, bubbled like lava at 
a crater’s brim, seething to overflow and scorch the land. 
It was plain that the speaker had great schemes, and a will 
of adamant. His ardour ran down like a cataract, smiting 
into foam the duller courage of the multitude. 

When he had ended his heroic challenge to the world, 
he took by the hand a girl who stood unmasked at his side. 
She was clad all in white with a cross of gold over her 
bosom, and her face shone nigh as pallid as her mantle. 
The men around the table craned forward to get the better 
view of her. Nor was it her temporal beauty alone that 
set the fanatical chins straining towards her figure. There 
was a radiance as of other worlds upon her forehead, a 
glamour of sanctity as though some sacred lamp shed a 
divine lustre through all her flesh. 

At the moment that the man in the red mask had 
drawn the girl forward beside him on the dais, Balthasar, 
with a stifled cry, had plucked the Lady Duessa by the 
sleeve. She had started, and stared in the friar’s face as he 
spoke to her in a whisper, a scintillant malice gathering in 
her eyes. Balthasar held her close to him by the wrist. 
They were observed of none save by Fulviac, whose care 
it was to watch all men. 

As Balthasar muttered to her, Duessa’s. frame seemed 
to straighten, to dilate, to stiffen. She did not glance at 
the friar, but sat staring at the girl in white upon the dais. 
The Madonna of the chapel of Avalon had risen before 
her as by magic ; her dispossessor stood before her in the 
flesh. Balthasar’s tongue bore witness to the truth. In 
the packed passion of a moment, Duessa remembered her 
shame, her dishonour, her hunger for revenge. 

The girl upon the dais had been speaking to the men 
assembled round her with the simple calm of one whose 
soul is assured of faith. For all her fierce distraction 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


167 


each word had fallen into Duessa’s brain like pebbles into 
a well. A mocking, riotous scorn chuckled and leapt in 
her like the laughter of some lewd faun. She heard not 
the zealous mutterings that eddied through the room. Her 
eyes were fixed on the man in the red cloak, as he bent to 
kiss the girl’s slim hand. 

She saw Fulviac turn and point to a roll of parchment 
on the table. 

‘‘We swim, sirs, or sink together,” were his words; 
“ there can be no traitors to the cause. In three days 
we hoist our banner. In three days Gilderoy shall rise. 
Sign, gentlemen, sign, in the name of God and of our 
Lady.” 

The leaders of Gilderoy crowded about the table where 
Prosper the Preacher waited with quill and testament, 
Sforza standing with drawn sword beside him. Fulviac 
had headed those who took the oath, and had drawn back 
from the press on to the dais. Meanwhile Duessa, with 
Balthasar muttering discretions in her ear, had skirted the 
black knot of conspirators and come close upon Fulviac. 
While Sforza and the rest were intent upon the scroll, she 
plucked the man in red by the sleeve, and spoke to him in 
an undertone. 

“ A word with you in an alcove.” 

Fulviac stared, but drew aside from the group none the 
less and followed her. She had moved to an oriel and sat 
down on the cushioned seat, her black robe sweeping the 
crimson cloth. Fulviac stood and faced her, thus closing 
her escape from the oriel. Midway between them and 
the table, Balthasar stood biting his nails in sullen vexation, 
ignorant of where the woman’s headstrong passions might 
be bearing them. 

Duessa soon had Fulviac at the tongue’s point. 

“ You are the first man in this assemblage ? ” she had 
asked him. 

“ Madame, that is so.” 

“ I have a truth to make known.” 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


1 68 

“ Unmask to me.” 

She hesitated, then obeyed him. 

“ Possibly I am known to you,” she said. 

Fulviac stood back a step, and looked at her as a man 
might look at an old love. A knot of wrinkles showed 
on his forehead. 

“ Duessa of the Black Hair.” 

“ Ah, in the old days.” 

‘‘ What would you now, madame ? ” 

“ Let me see your face.” 

« No.” 

“You hold me at a disadvantage.” 

“That is well. Tell me this tale of yours.” 

His voice was cold as a frost, and there was an inclem- 
ent look about him that should have warned the woman 
had she been less blinded by her own malice. She had 
lost her cunning in her fuming passion, and denounced 
when she should have suggested, blurted the whole when 
a hint would have sufficed her. 

“ I was the Lord Flavian of Gambrevault’s wife,” she said. 

“ That man ! ” 

“ That devil ! ” 

Fulviac drew a deep breath. 

“ Well ? ” he said. 

“ The fellow has divorced me ; I will tell you why. You 
are the man they call Fulviac. It was you who took the 
Lord Flavian in an ambuscade, to kill him, for the sake of 
Yeoland of Cambremont, who stands yonder. The whole 
tale is mine. It was that girl who let the Lord Flavian 
escape out of your hands. A fine fool she is making of you, 
my friend. A saint, forsooth ! Flavian of Avalon might 
sing you a strange song.” 

Duessa took breath. She had prophesied passion, a vol- 
canic outburst. Fulviac leant against the wainscotting with 
folded arms, his masked face impenetrable, and calm as 
stone. He stirred never a muscle. Duessa had ventured 
forth into the deeps. 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


169 


The man thrust a question at her suddenly. 

‘‘You can prove the truth of this ? ” 

Duessa pointed him to Fra Balthasar. 

“ The priest can bear out my tale. I will beckon him.’* 

“ Wait.” 

“ Ah ! ” 

“ Does Sforza know of this ? ” 

“ None know it, save I and yonder priest.” 

“ Then I uncover to you.” 

He jerked his mask away, and stood half stooping towards 
her with a peculiar lustre in his eyes. Duessa stared at 
him as at one risen from the dead. Her face blanched and 
stiffened into a bleak, gaping terror, and she could not 
speak. 

“Your tale dies with you.” 

He smote her suddenly in the bosom with his poniard, 
smote her so heavily that the blow dragged her to her knees. 
She screamed like a trapped hare, pressed her hands over 
her bosom, blood oozing over them. A last malevolence 
leapt into her eyes ; she panted and strove to speak. 

“ Listen, sirs, hear me ” 

Fulviac, standing over her like a Titan, smote her again 
to silence, and for ever. With arms thrust upwards, she 
fell forward along the floor, her white face hidden by her 
hood. A red ringlet curled away over the polished oak. 
Fulviac had sprung away with jaw clenched, his face as 
stone. He drew his sword, plucked Balthasar by the 
throat, hurled him back against the wainscotting. 

“ A spy, poniard him.” 

The great room rushed into uproar; the guards came 
running from the door. Fulviac had passed his sword 
through Balthasar’s body. The friar rolled upon the floor, 
yelping, and clutching at the swords that stabbed him. It 
was soon over ; not a moan, not a whimper. Sforza, white 
as a corpse, gripped Fulviac by the shoulder. 

“ Know you whom you have killed ? ” 

“ Well enough, Gonfaloniere.” 


170 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


“ What means it ? ” 

“ That I am a brave man.” 

Sforza quailed from him and ran to the oriel, where sev- 
eral men had lifted the woman in their arms. Her lustrous 
hair fell down from under her hood ; her hands, stained 
with her own blood, trailed limply on the floor. She was 
a pathetic figure with her pale, fair face and drooping lids. 
The men murmured as they held her, like some poor bird, 
still warm and plastic, with the life but half flown from her 
body. 

Fulviac stood and looked down into her face. His 
sword still smoked with Balthasar’s blood. 

“ Sirs,” he said, and his strong voice shook, ‘‘ hear me, 
I will tell you the truth. Once I loved that woman, but 
she was evil, evil to the core. To-night she came bring- 
ing discord and treachery amongst us. I have done mur- 
der before God for the sake of the cause. Cover her 
face ; it was ever too fair to look upon. Heaven rest her 
soul ! ” 


XXV 


Two days had passed since the secret assembly in the' 
house of Sforza, Gonfaloniere of Gilderoy. They had 
buried Duessa and Balthasar by night in the rose garden, 
by the light of a single lantern, with the fallen petals for 
a pall. It was the evening before the day when the land 
should rise in arms to overthrow feudal injustice and op- 
pression. On the morrow the great cliff would be deso- 
late, its garrison marching through the black pine woods on 
Avalon and Geraint. 

Towards eve, when the sky was clear as a single sap- 
phire, Fulviac came from his parlour seeking Yeoland, to 
find her little chamber empty. A strange smile played 
upon his face as he looked round the room with cruci- 
fix, embroidery frame, and prayer-desk, with rosary hung 
thereon. He picked up her lute, thrummed the strings, 
and broke broodingly into the sway of some southern 
song : 

“Ah, woman of love. 

With the stars in the night, 

I see thee above 
In a circlet of light. 

On the west^s scarlet scutcheon 
I mark thy device ; 

And the shade of the forest 
Makes gloom of thine eyes, 

God’s twilight 
To me.” 

He ended the stanza, kissed the riband, and set the lute 
down with a certain quaint reverence. The postern stood 

171 


172 


LOF£ AMONG THE RUINS 


open and admonished him. He passed out down the clifi 
stairway to the forest. 

An indescribable peace pervaded the woods, a supreme 
silence such as the shepherd on the hills knows when the 
stars beckon to his soul. Fulviac walked slowly and 
thought the more. He felt the altitude of the forest still- 
ness as of miles of luminous, windless aether; he felt the 
anguishing pathos of a woman's face ; he felt the strange- 
ness of the new philosophy that appealed to his heart. 
Nothing is more fascinating than watching a spiritual up- 
heaval in one’s own soul ; watching some great power 
breaking up the crust of custom and habit ; pondering the 
while on the eternal mysteries that baffle reason. 

He found Yeoland amid the pines. She had been to the 
forest grave and was returning towards the cliff when the man 
met her. She seemed whiter than was her wont, her dark 
eyes looking solemn and shadowy under their sweeping 
lashes. She seemed marvellously fair, marvellously 
pure and fragile, as she came towards him under the 
trees. 

Something in Fulviac’s look startled her. Women are 
like the sea to the cloudy moods of men, in that they catch 
every sun-ray and shadow. An indefinite something in 
the man’s manner made her restless and apprehensive. 
She went near to him with questioning eyes and laid her 
hand upon his arm. 

“ You have had bad news ? ” 

Nothing.” 

‘‘ Something has troubled you ? ” 

“ Perhaps.” 

She looked at him pensively, a suspicion of reproach, 
pity, and understanding in her eyes. 

“ Is it remorse, your conscience ? ” 

“ My conscience ? Have I had one ! ” 

“You have a strong conscience.” 

“ Deo gratias. Then you have unearthed it, madame.” 

A vein of infinite bitterness and melancholy seemed to 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


173 


glimmer in his mood. It was a moment of self-speculation. 
The girl still looked up into his face. 

“ Why did you kill that woman ? ” 

“ Why ? ” 

Her dead face haunts me, I see it everywhere ; there 
is some strange shadow over my soul. O that I could 
get her last cry from my ears ! ” 

Fulviac, with a sudden burst of cynicism, broke into 
grim laughter, a sound like the rattling of dry bones in a 
closet. The girl shrank away with her lips twitching. 

“ Why cannot you trust me with the truth ? ” 

“Truth is not always beneficent. It was a matter of 
policy, of diplomacy.” 

“Why?” 

“ Discords are bad at the eleventh hour. That woman 
could have half-wrecked our cause. It was policy to 
silence her and the man. I made sure of it by killing 
them.” 

Yeoland’s face had a shadow of repugnance upon it ; 
her eyes darkened. The man seemed in a callous, scoffing 
humour; it was mere glittering steel over the bitterness 
within. 

“ You will tell me her name? ” 

“ What is it to you ? ” 

“ She haunts me.” 

“ Forget her.” 

“ I cannot.” 

“ Have the truth if you will. She was the wife of the 
Lord Flavian of Gambrevault.” 

The girl stood motionless for a moment ; then swayed 
away several steps from Fulviac under the trees. One 
hand was at her throat ; her voice came in a whisper. 

“ What did she tell you ? ” 

“ Many things.” 

“ Quick, do they touch me ? ” 

Fulviac choked an oath, and played with his sword. 

“ Then there was some truth in her ? ” he said. 


174 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


The girl grew imperious. 

‘‘ I command you to tell me all.” 

“ Madame, the woman declared you were a traitress, and 
that this lordling, this Flavian of Gambrevault, loved you.” 

“And you killed her ” 

“For your sake and the cause. She might have cast 
our Saint out of heaven.” 

Yeoland went back from him and leant against a tree, 
with her hands over her eyes. Sunlight splashed down upon 
her dress ; she shivered as in a cold wind, and could not 
speak. Fulviac’s voice, level and passionless, questioned 
her as she stood and hid her face. 

“You let the Lord Flavian escape ? ” 

“ I did.” 

“ Have you seen him since ? ” 

“ I have.” 

“ Thanks for the truth.” 

Her responses had come like chords smitten from the 
strings of a lute. She started away from the tree and began 
to walk up and down, wringing her hands. Her face was 
like the face of one in torture, and she seemed to struggle 
for breath. 

“ Fulviac, I could not kill the man.” 

The words came like a wail. 

“ He was young, and he besought me when your men 
were breaking down the gate. What could I do, what 
could I do ? He was young, and I let him go by the 
postern and told you a lie. God help me, I told you a 
lie.” 

The man watched her with arms folded. There was a 
look of deep melancholy upon his face, as of one wounded 
by the truth. His voice was sad but resolute. 

“ And the rest ? ” 

She rallied suddenly and came to him with truth in her 
eyes ; they were wonderfully piteous and appealing. 

“ God knows I have been loyal to you. The man 
tempted me, but I withstood him j I kept my loyalty,” 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


m 


“And you told him ? ” 

“ Nothing, nothing ; he is as innocent as a child.” 

Fulviac looked down at her with a great light in his 
eyes. He spoke slowly and with a deeper intonation in 
his voice. 

“ I have dealt with many bad women,” he said, “ but I 
believe you are speaking the truth.” 

“ It is the truth.” 

“ I take it as such \ you have been too much a woman.” 

“ Ah, if you could only forgive.” 

He stepped forward suddenly, took her hands, and looked 
down at her with a vast tenderness. 

“ Little woman, if I told you I loved you, would you 
still swear that you have spoken the truth ? ” 

“ God judge me, Fulviac, I have been loyal.” 

A strange light played upon his face. 

“ And I, ye heavens, have I learnt my lesson in these 
later days ? Girl, you are above me as the stars j I may 
but kiss your hands, no more. You are not for worldly 
ways, or for me. Battered, war-worn veteran, I have come 
again by the heart of a boy. Fear me not, little woman, 
there is no anger in a great love, only deep grieving and 
unalterable honour.” 


XXVI 

It was dawn ; mists covered the forest ; not a wind stirred 
or sobbed amid the boughs. A vast grey canopy seemed to 
tent the world, a mysterious veil that tempered the sun and 
spread a spiritual gloom over rock and tree. 

The noise of horns played through the misty aisles — 
horns many-tongued, faint, clamorous, like the trumpet- 
ing of forest elves. There was the dull, rhythmic onrush 
of many thousand feet, the hurrying, multitudinous tramp 
of men marching. Armour gleamed through the glooms ; 
casque and bassinet, salade and cap of steel flowed on and 
on as phosphorescent ripples on a subterranean stream. 
Pike, glaive, gisarme shone like stubble over the forest 
slopes. The sullen tramp of men, the clashing clamour 
of arms, the blaring of a solitary clarion, such were songs 
of the great pine forest on that July morning. 

Yeoland, rebel lady and saint, on a great white horse, 
rode at Fulviac’s side in full armour, save for her helmet. 
Her horse was cased in steel — chamfron, crinet, gorget, 
poitrel, croupiere gleaming like burnished silver. She 
made a fine and martial figure enough, a glittering dawn 
star for a heroic cause. About her rode her guard, the 
pick of Fulviac’s men, some fifty spears in all, masses of 
steel, each bearing a scarlet cross blazoned upon his white 
jupon. Nord of the Hammer bore the red banner 
worked by the girPs own hands. They were hardy men 
and big of bone, sworn to keep and guard her to the 
death. 

Fulviac and Yeoland rode side by side like brothers in 
arms. All about them were rolling spears and rocking 

176 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


177 


helmets moving among the myriad trees. The sound of 
arms surged round them like the ominous onrush of a sea. 
War followed like a thunder-cloud on their heels. 

Fulviac was in great spirits, somewhat solemn and 
philosophic, but full of the exultation of a man who feels 
his ship surging on the foaming backs of giant billows. 
His eyes were proud enough when they scanned the girl 
at his side. His heart thundered an echo to the grim 
tramp of his men on the march. 

‘‘To-day,” he said, making grandiose flourishes with his 
sword, “ the future unrobes to us. We plunge like Ulysses 
into the unknown. This is life with a vengeance ! ” 

She had a smile on her lips and a far-away look in her 
eyes. 

“ If you love me,” she said, “ be merciful.” 

“ Ah, you are always a woman.” 

“ There are many women such as I am ; there are 
many hearts that may be wounded ; there are many 
children.” 

He looked at her meditatively, as though her words were 
both bitter and sweet in his mouth. 

“You must play the philosopher, little woman; remem- 
ber that we work for great ends. I will have mercy when 
mercy is expedient. But we must strike, and strike terror, 
we must crush, we must kill.” 

“ Yet be merciful.” 

“ War is no pastime ; men grip with gauntlets of iron, 
not with velvet gloves. Fanaticism, hate, revenge, 
patriotism, lust of plunder, and the rest, what powers are 
these to let loose upon a land ! We have the oppression 
of centuries red in our bosoms. War is no mere subtle 
game of chess ; the wolf comes from the wilderness ; the 
vulture swings in the sky. Fire, death, blood, rapine, and 
despair, such are the elements of war.” 

“ I know, I know.” 

“To purge a field, we burn the crop. To convert, we 
set swords leaping. To cleanse, we let in the sea. To 


178 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


move the fabrics of custom and the past, a man must play 
the Hercules. God crushes great nations to insure the in- 
evitable evolution of His will. To move the world, one 
must play the god.” 

It was noon when the vanguard cleared the trees, and 
spread rank on rank over the edge of a moor. A zealous 
sun shone overhead, and the world was full of light and 
colour, the heather already a blaze of purple, the bracken 
still virgin, the dense dark pines richly green against the 
white and azure of the sky. 

Fulviac, Yeoland, and her guards rode out to a hillock 
and took station under the banner of the Cross. The forest 
belched steel ; rank on rank swept out with pikes glitter- 
ing ; shields shone, and colours juggled mosaics haphazard. 
Horse and foot rolled out into the sun, and gathered in 
masses about the scarlet banner and the girl in her silvery 
harness on the great white horse. The forest shadows 
were behind them, they had cast off its cloak ; the world 
lay bare to their faces ; they were hurling their challenge in 
the face of Fate. Every man in the mass might well have 
felt the future glowing upon his brain, might well conceive 
himself a hero and a patriot. It was a deep, sonorous shout 
that rolled up, when a thousand points of steel smote up- 
wards to the heavens. Yeoland, amid her guards, had dim 
visions of the power vested in her slender sword. Where 
her banner flew, there brave men would toss their pikes 
with a cheer for the charge home. Where her sword 
pointed, a thousand blades would leap to do her bidding. 
Even as she pondered these things, the trumpets sounded 
and the men of the forest marched on. 

Fulviac's plans had been matured but a week. His 
opening of the campaign was briefly as follows. He was 
bearing north-west towards Geraint, and Geraint was to 
rise that night, massacre the King’s garrison, and come 
out to him. Avalon lay in Fulviac’s path. He was to 
smite a blow at it on his march, surprise the place if pos- 
sible, and then hold on for Geraint. The same night. 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


179 


Gilderoy would rise ; the castellan, who was with the 
townsfolk, would open the gates of the castle and deliver 
up all arms and the siege train that was kept there. From 
Geraint, Fulviac trusted to ride on with a single troop to 
take command at Gilderoy, leaving Nord, Prosper, and the 
girl Yeoland in command at Geraint. With his numbers 
raised to some twenty thousand men, he would have his 
force divided into two bodies — ten thousand at Gilderoy, 
ten thousand at Geraint. These two bodies would sweep 
up by forced marches, converge on Gambrevault, crush the 
Lord Flavian’s small armament, shut him up in his castle. 
Assault or leaguer would do the rest. Meanwhile the peas- 
antry would rise and flock in to the standard of the people. 

Free of the forest, Fulviac sent on a troop of horse 
towards Geraint to warn the townsfolk of his advance. 
With the main mass of the foot, he held northwards over 
hill and dale, and towards evening touched the hem of the 
oak woods that wrapped the manor of Avalon. The place 
was but feebly garrisoned, as the Lord Flavian had with- 
drawn most of his men to Gambrevault, dreaming little of 
the thunder-storm that was shadowing the land. 

Fulviac had his plan matured. Fifty men-at-arms in 
red and green, the Gambrevault colours, were to advance 
with a forged pennon upon the place, as though sent 
as a reinforcement from Gambrevault. The main body 
would follow at a distance and lie ambushed in the woods. 
If the ruse answered, and it was an old trick enough, the 
barbican and gate could be held till Fulviac came up and 
made matters sure. Thus Avalon would fall, proto-martyr 
on the side of feudalism. 

Nor were Fulviac’s prognostications at fault. There 
were not sixty men in Avalon, and Fulviac’s fifty gained 
footing in the place and held their ground till the rest 
came up. The affair was over, save for some desultory 
slaughter on the turrets, when Fulviac galloped forward 
over the meadows with Yeoland and her guard. The 
man kept the girl on the further side of the moat, and 


l80 LOV£ AMONG THE RUINS 

did not suffer her to stumble too suddenly on the realities 
of war. He feared wisely her woman’s nature, and did 
not desire to overshock her senses. The butchery was 
over when they neared the walls. They heard certain 
promiscuous yelpings, and saw half a dozen men-at-arms, 
who had made a last stand on a tower, tumbled headlong 
over the battlements into the moat below. Fulviac did 
not suffer the girl to cross the bridge. What passed 
within was hidden by the impenetrable massiveness of the 
sullen walls. 

Thus Avalon, fair castle of the woods and waters, sent 
out her wistful prophecy to the land. In her towers and 
galleries men lay dead, bleak and stiff, contorted into 
fantastic attitudes, with pike or sword sucking their vitals. 
Blood crept down the stairs ; dead men cumbered the beds 
and jammed the doors. There had been much screaming 
among the women ; even Fulviac’s orders could not cool 
the passions of the mob ; it was well indeed that he kept 
Yeoland innocent in the meadows. 

Fanaticism, ignorance, lust were loose in Avalon like 
evil beasts. All its fairness was defamed in one short 
hour. Hangings were torn down, furniture wrecked and 
shattered, chests and cupboards spoiled of all their 
store. In the chapel, where refugees had fled to the 
altar, there had been slaughter, merciless and brutal. 
Bertrand, the old knight and seneschal, lay dead on the 
altar steps, with a broken sword and fifty rents in his 
carcase. Men were breaking the images, defacing the 
frescoes, strewing all the place with blood and riot. Nord 
of the Hammer stood over the cellar door with his great 
mace over his shoulder, and kept the men from the wine. 
Elsewhere the mob rooted like a herd of swine in the 
rich chambers, and worked to the uttermost its swinish 
will. 

When the day was past, Fulviac and his men, as hounds 
that have tasted blood, marched on exultantly towards 
Geraint. Night and great silence settled down over 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


i8i 


Avalon. The woods watched like a host of plaintive 
mourners over the scene. The moon rose and shone on 
the glimmering mere and swooning lilies, and streamed in 
through shattered casements on men sleeping in their 
blood, on ruin, and the ghastly shape of death. 


XXVII 


Gilderoy had risen. 

It was midnight. A great bell boomed and clashed over 
the city, with a roar of many voices floating on the wind, 
like the sullen thunder of a rising sea. Torches flashed 
and ebbed along the streets, with hundreds of scampering 
shadows, and a glinting of steel. Knots of armed men hur- 
ried towards the great piazza, where, by the City Cross, 
Sforza the Gonfaloniere and his senators had gathered 
about the red and white Gonfalon of the Commune. All 
the Guild companies were there with their banners and 
men-at-arms. “ Fulviac,’’ “Saint Yeoland,” “Liberty 
and the Commune ’’ : such were the watchwords that filled 
the mouths of the mob. 

Cressets had burst into flame on the castle’s towers, 
lighting a lurid firmament ; while from tfie steeps of the 
city, where stood the palaces of the nobles, smoke and 
flame began to rush ominously into the night. Waves of 
hoarse ululations seemed to sweep the city from north, 
south, east, and west. Trumpets were clanging in the 
castle, drums beating, fifes braying. Through the inde- 
scribable chaos the great bell smote on, throbbing through 
the minutes like the heart of a god. 

It will be remembered that the Lord p'lavian was in 
Gilderoy for the purchasing of arms. At midnight you 
would have found him in his state bed-chamber in the 
abbot’s palace, tugging at his hose, fumbling at his points 
and doublet, buckling on his sword. He was hardly awake 
with the single taper winking in the gloom. The shrill 
ululations of the mob sounded through the house, with the 
182 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


183 


clash of swords and the crash of hammers. The Lord 
Flavian craned from the window, saw what he could, heard 
much, and wondered if hell had broken loose. 

“ Fulviac and the Commune ! ” 

“ Saint Yeoland ! ’’ 

“ Down with the lords, down with the priests ! ” 

The man at the window heard these cries, and puzzled 
them out in his peril. Certainly he was a lord ; therefore 
unpopular. And Yeoland ! Wherefore was that name 
sounding on the tongues of brothel-mongers and cooks ! 
Was he still dreaming ? Certes, these rally ing-cries car- 
ried a certain blunt hint, advising him that he would have 
to care for his own skin. 

Malise, his page, knelt at the door with his ear to the 
key-hole. The boy was in his shirt and breeches, and 
trembling like an aspen. Flavian stood over him. They 
heard a rending sound as of a gate giving, a roar as of 
water breaking through a dam, a yelp, a scream or two, a 
confused medley of many voices. 

Flavian told Malise to open the door and look out into 
the gallery. He did so. A man, more zealous than the 
rest, sprang out of the dark and stabbed at the lad’s 
throat. He fell with a whimper. Flavian plunged his 
sword home, dragged Malise within, barred the door again. 
Very tenderly he lifted the boy in his arms. Malise’s 
hands clung about his lord’s neck ; he moaned a little, and 
was very white. 

“ Save yourself, messire ! ” 

Flavian bore him towards a door that stood open in 
the panelling. He felt the lad’s blood soaking through 
his doublet ; entreaties were poured into his ears. 

“ I die, I die ; oh, the smart, the burn of it ! Leave 
me, messire ; let me lie still ! ” 

“ Nonsense ” 

“ It is no use \ I have it deep, the man’s knife went 
home.” 

Flavian felt the lad’s hands relax, saw his head droop 


184 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


on his shoulder. He turned and put him down on the 
bed, and knelt there, while Malise panted and strove to 
speak. 

“ Go — messire.” 

Flavian was trying to staunch the flow from the boy’s 
neck with a corner of the sheeting. His own doublet was 
drenched with blood. In a minute he saw the futility 
of such unconscious heroism ; the flickering taper by the 
bed told that Malise’s life would ebb before its own light 
would be gutted. Blows were being dealt upon the door. 
Flavian kissed the lad, took the taper, and passed out by the 
panel in the wainscotting. 

A stairway led him to a little gate that opened on the 
abbot’s garden. He more than thought to find the passage 
disputed, but the place stretched quiet before him as he 
came out with sword drawn. The scent of the flowers 
and fragrant shrubs was heavy on the night air, and the 
shouts of the mob sounded over the black roofs, and rang 
in his ears with an inspiriting fury. 

There was a gate at the far end of the garden, opening 
through a stone wall into a narrow alley, and Flavian, as 
he scoured the paths, could see pike points bobbing 
above the wall, and a flare of torches. Men were break- 
ing in even here, and he was caught like a rat in a 
corner. In an angle of the wall he found a big mar- 
row bed, and crawling under the leaves like a worm, he 
smeared dirt over his face and clothes and awaited 
developments. In another minute the garden gate fell 
away, and a tatterdemalion rout poured in, strenuous 
and frothy as any tavern pack. They spread over the 
garden towards the house, shouting and blaspheming 
like a herd of satyrs. Flavian saw his chance, plunged 
from his dark corner, and joined the mob of moving 
figures. Dirty face and dirtier clothes were in kindred 
keeping. He shouted as lustily as any, and by dint of 
gradual and discreet circumlocutions, edged to the gate 
and escaped into the now-deserted alley. 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 1 8$ 

Running on, he skirted the abbey and came out into 
the square that flanked the abbey church, and the great 
gate. A hundred torches seemed moving behind the 
abbey windows. The square teemed and smoked with 
riot. Flavian went into the crowd with drawn sword, 
screeching out mob cries like any huckster, smiting men 
on the back, laughing and swearing as in excellent 
humour. His gusto saved him. As he passed through 
the mob he saw heads, gory and mangled, dancing upon 
pikes ; he saw women drunk with beer and violence, 
waving a severed foot or hand, kissing men, hugging 
each other, mouthing unutterable obscenities in the mad 
delirium of the hour. He saw whelps of boys scrambling 
and struggling for some ghastly relic ; scavengers and 
sweeps dressed up in the habits of the Benedictines they 
had slain. One man carried in his palm an eye that had 
been torn from its socket, which he held with a leer in 
the faces of his fellows. Further still, he saw half a dozen 
beggars dragging the dead body of a lady over the stones 
by cords fastened to the ankles, while dogs worried and 
tore at the flesh. He learnt afterwards that it was the 
body of his own cousin, a young girl who had been 
lately betrothed. Last of all, he saw a carcase dangling 
from a great iron lamp bracket in the centre of the 
square, and understood from the crowd that it was the 
body of the abbot, his uncle. Men and women were pelt- 
ing it with olFal. 

And he, an aristocrat of aristocrats, dirty and dishevelled, 
rubbed shoulders with the scourings of the gutter, shouted 
their shouts, echoed their exultation. At first the grim 
humour of the thing smote him in grosser farcical fashion ; 
but the mood was not for long. He remembered Malise, 
whimpering and quivering in his arms ; he remembered the 
body dragged about the square and worried by dogs; he 
remembered the carcase swinging by the rope ; he remem- 
bered the dripping heads and the fragments of flesh tossed 
about by the maddened and intoxicated mob. It was then 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


1 86 

that his eyes grew hot with shame and his blood ran like 
lava through his veins. It was then that the spirit of a 
vampire rushed into his heart, and that he swore great 
solemn oaths by all the bones and relics of the saints. God 
give him a hale body out of Gilderoy, and this city scum 
should be scourged with iron and roasted by fire. 

He got across the square by dint of his noisy hypocrisy, 
and turned morosely into a dark alley that led towards the 
walls. Hot-hearted gentleman, the mere panic-stricken 
thirst for existence had cooled out of him, and he was in a 
fine, rendering passion to his finger-tips, a striding, blas- 
phemous temper, that longed to take the whole city by the 
throat and beat a fist in its bloated face. He wondered 
what had become of his knights, esquires, and men-at-arms. 
It was told him in later days how they died fighting in the 
abbey refectory, died with the Benedictines at their side, 
and a rare barrier of corpses to tell of the swing of their 
swords. 

Flavian dodged into a dark porch to consider his cir- 
cumstances and the baffling influence of the same. He 
had caught enough from the mob to comprehend what had 
occurred, and what was to follow. Certainly for many 
months he had heard rumours, but, like other demigods, he 
had turned a deaf ear and smiled like a Saturn. The large- 
ness of the upheaval stupefied him at first j now, as he 
pondered it, it gave a more heroic colour to his passions. 

To be free of Gilderoy : that was the necessity. He 
guessed shrewdly enough that the gates would be well 
guarded. And the walls ! He smote his thigh and re- 
membered where the river coursed round the rocky foun- 
dations, and washed the walls. A big plunge, a swim, and 
he would have liberty enough and to spare. 

He set off instanter down alleys and byways, through the 
most poverty-stricken quarter of the city. The place had 
a hundred stenches on a hot summer night. Naturally 
enough, such haunts were deserted, save for a few hags 
garrulous at the doorways, and a few fragments of dirt. 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 1 8 / 

called by courtesy, children. The rats had gone maraud- 
ing, leaving their offal heaps empty. 

Keen as a fox, he threaded on, and came before long to 
the walls, a black mass, rising above the hovels packed like 
pigsties to the very ramparts. Avoiding a tower, he held 
along a lane that skirted the wall, looking for one of the 
many stairways leading to the battlements. It was here, in 
the light of a tavern window, that he came plump upon two 
sweaty artisans, rendered somewhat more gross and insolent 
by the fumes of liquor. The men challenged Flavian with 
drunken arrogance ; they had their password, to the devil. 
All the accumulated viciousness of an hour tingled in his 
sword arm. He fell upon the men like a Barak, kicked 
one carcase into the gutter, and ran on. 

He was soon up a stairway, and on the walls, finding 
them absolutely deserted. The city stretched behind him, 
a black chaos, emitting a grim uproar, its dark slopes 
chequered here and there with angry flame. Before him 
swept the river, and he heard it swirling amid the reeds. 
Further still, meadows lay open to the stars, and in the 
distance stood solemn woods and heights, touched with the 
silver of the sky. 

He moved on to where a loop of the river curled up to 
wash the walls. The water was in full flood at the place, 
and he heard it gurgling cheerily against the stones. 
Flavian took a last look at Gilderoy, its castle red with 
burning cressets, its multitudinous roofs, its uproar like the 
noise of a nest of hornets. He shook his fist over the 
city, climbed the battlements, jumped for it, plunged like a 
log, came up spluttering to strike out for the further bank. 

In the meadows the townsfolk kept horses at graze. 
Flavian, aglow to the finger-tips, with water squelching 
from his shoes, caught a cob that was hobbled in a field 
hard by the river. He unhobbled the beast, hung on by 
the mane, mounted, and set off bare-back for the road to 
Gambrevault. 


XXVIII 


Dawn climbing red over pinewoods piled on the hills ; 
dawn optimistic yet ominous, harbinger of war and such 
perils as set the heart leaping and the blood afire ; dawn 
that cried unto the world, ‘‘ Better one burst of heroism 
and then the grave, than a miserable monotony of nothing- 
ness, a domestic surfeiting of the senses with a wife and a 
fat larder.’’ 

Out of the east climbed the man on the stolen horse, 
riding out of the dawn with the lurid phantasms of the 
night still running riot in his brain. No sleep had 
smoothed the crumpled page, or touched the memory with 
unguent to assuage the smart. Maledictions, vengeances, 
prophecies of fire and sword rushed with the red dawn over 
the hills. 

With forty miles behind him, he came on his jaded, 
sweaty beast towards his own castle of Gambrevault, 
forded his own stream, saw his mills gushing foam, heard 
the thunder of the weir. How eternally peaceful every- 
thing seemed in the dewy amber light of the dawn ! 
Away rolled the downs, billows of glorious green, into the 
west. Gambrevault’s towers rose against the blue ; he 
saw the camp in the meadows ; his own banner blowing to 
the breeze. 

The meadows that morning were quiet as a graveyard, 
as the Lord Flavian rode through to the great gate of 
Gambrevault. Soldiers idling about, stiffened up, saluted, 
stared in astonishment at the grim, morose-faced man, who 
rode by on a foundered horse, looking neither to the right 
hand nor the left. He cut something of a figure, as though 

i88 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


189 


he had been in a tavern brawl, and had spent the night 
snoring in a cow-house. Yet there was an indescribable 
power and dignity in the tatterdemalion rider for all his 
tumbled look. The compressed lips, knotted brow, 
smouldering eyes spoke of phenomenal emotions, phenom- 
enal passions. Not a man cheered, and the silence was 
yet more eloquent than clamour. He rode in by the great 
gate, and parrying the blank glances and interrogations of his 
knights, called for two esquires, and withdrew to his own 
state rooms. 

His first trouble was to acknowledge such necessities 
as hunger and cleanliness. He contrived to compass both 
at once, eating ravenously even while he was in the bath. 
His next command was for his harness, and his esquires 
armed him, agog for news, even waxing inquisitive, to be 
snubbed for their pains. 

“ Assemble my knights and gentlemen in the great hall,” 
ran his order, and after praying awhile in his own private 
oratory, he passed down to join the assemblage, solemn 
and soul-burdened as a young Jove. 

There is a certain vain satisfaction in being the possessor 
of some phenomenal piece of news, wherewith to astonish 
a circle of friends. The dramatic person blurts it out like 
a stage duke ; the real epicure lets it filter through his 
teeth in fragments, watching with a twinkling satisfaction 
its effect upon his hearers. The Lord Flavian’s revelations 
that morning were deliberate and gradual, leisurely in the 
extreme. Many a man waxes flippant or cynical when his 
feelings are deep and sincere, and he is disinclined to bare 
his heart to the world. Flavian addressed his assembled 
knights with a certain stinted and pedantic courtliness ; 
when they had warmed to his level, then he could indulge 
his sympathies to the full. The atmosphere about those 
who wait to hear our experiences or opinions is often like 
cold water, somewhat repellent till the first plunge has been 
tried. 

“ Gentlemen,” he said, “ I regret to inform you that 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


190 

the Abbot Porphyry, my uncle, is numbered with the 
saints/’ 

So much for the first confession ; it elicited a sympa- 
thetic murmur from those assembled, a very proper and 
respectable expression of feeling, but nothing passionate. 

“ I also have to inform you, with much Christian resig- 
nation, that Sir Jordan and Sir Kay, Malise, my page, and 
some twenty men-at-arms are in all human probability 
dead.” 

This time some glimmer of light pervaded the hall. 
There was still mystification, silence, and an exchanging 
of glances. 

“ Finally, gentlemen, I may confess to you that a great 
insurrection is afoot in the land j that Gilderoy has de- 
clared against the King and the nobility ; that the scum 
of a populace has made a great massacre of the magnates ; 
that I, gentlemen, by the grace of God, have escaped to 
preach to you of these things.” 

A chorus of grim ejaculations came from the knights 
and the captains assembled. Astonishment, and emotions 
more durable, showed on every face. Flavian gained heat, 
and let his tongue have liberty *, at the end of ten minutes 
of fervid oratory, the men were as wise as their lord and 
every wit as vicious. Gilderoy had signalised her rising 
in blood ; mob rule had been proclaimed ; the peasantry 
and townsfolk had thrown down the glove to the nobles. 
These were bleak, plain facts, that touched to the quick 
the men who stood gathered in the great hall of Gambre- 
vault. Not a sword was in its scabbard when Modred’s 
deep voice gave the cry — 

“ God and St. Philip — for the King.” 

Then like a powder bag flung into a fire came the news 
of the storming and wrecking of Avalon. A single man- 
at-arms had escaped the slaughter, escaped by crawling down 
an offal shoot and hiding till the rebels evacuated the place 
and marched under cover of night for Geraint. The man 
had crept out and fled on foot from the stricken place for 


LOV£ AMONG THE RUINS 


19I 

Gambrevault. It was a tramp of ten leagues, but he had 
stuck to it through the night like a Trojan, and, knowing 
the road well, had reached Gambrevault before the sun was 
at noon. They brought him before Flavian and the rest, 
fagged to the fifth toe, and hardly able to stand. He told 
the whole tale, as much as he knew of it, in a blunt yet 
dazed way. His senses appeared numbed by the deeds that 
had been done that night. 

Flavian leant back in his escutcheoned chair, and gnawed 
at his lip. This last thrust had gone home more keenly 
than the rest. That castle of lilies, Avalon the fair, was 
but a friend of wood and stone, yet a friend having won- 
drous hold upon his heart. He had been born there, and 
under the shadows of its towers his mother had taken her 
last sacrament. Men can love a tree, a cottage, a stream ; 
Flavian loved Avalon as being the temple of the unutterable 
memories of the past. Desolation and ruin ! Bertrand, his 
old master at arms, slain ! He sprang up like an Achilles 
with the ghost of Patroclus haunting his soul. 

“ Gentlemen, shall these things pass ? Hear me, God 
and the world, hear my oath sworn in this my castle of 
Gambrevault. May I never rest till these things are 
reprieved in blood, till there are too few men to bury the 
dead. Though my walls fall, and my towers totter, though 
I win ruin and a grave, I swear by the Sacrament to do such 
deeds as shall ring and resound in history.” 

So they went all of them together, and swore by the 
body and blood of the Lord to take such vengeance as 
the sword alone can give to the hot passions of mankind. 

That noon there was much stir and life in Gambrevault. 
The camp hummed like a wasp’s nest when violence 
threatens ; the men were ready to run to arms on the 
first sounding of the trumpet. Armourers and farriers 
were at work. Flavian had sent out two companies of 
light horse to reconnoitre towards Gilderoy and Geraint. 
They had orders not to draw rein till they had sure view 
of such rebel voices as were on the march ; to hang on the 


192 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


horizon ; to watch and follow ; to send gallopers to Gam- 
brevault ; on no account to give battle. Companies were 
despatched to drive in the cattle from the hills, and to 
bring in fodder. The Gambrevault mills were emptied of 
flour, and burnt to the ground, in view of their being of 
use to the rebels in case of a siege. Certain cottages and 
outhouses under the castle walls were demolished to leave 
no cover for an attacking force. The cats, tribocs, cata- 
pults, and bombards upon the battlements were overhauled, 
and cleared for a siege. 

Towards evening, human wreckage began to drift in 
from the country, bearing lamentable witness to the thor- 
oughness of Fulviac’s incendiarism. Gambrevault might 
have stood for heaven by the strange scattering of folk who 
came to seek its sanctuary. Fire and sword were abroad 
with a vengeance ; cottars, borderers, and villains had risen 
in the night ; treachery had drawn its poniard ; even the 
hound had snapped at its master’s hand. 

Many pathetic figures passed under the great arch of 
Gambrevault gate that day. First a knight came in on 
horseback, a baby in his arms, and a woman clinging 
behind him, sole relics of a home. Margaret, the grey- 
haired countess of St. Anne’s, was brought in on a litter 
by a few faithful men-at-arms ; her husband and her two 
sons were dead. Young Prosper of Fountains came in on 
a pony ; the lad wept like a girl when questioned, and told 
of a mother and a sire butchered, a home sacked and burnt. 
There were stern faces in Gambrevault that day, and looks 
more eloquent than words. “ Verily,” said Flavian to 
Modred the Strong, “we shall have need of our swords, 
and God grant that we use them to good purpose.” 

So night drew near, and still no riders had come from 
the companies that had ridden out to reconnoitre towards 
Gilderoy and Geraint. Flavian had had a hundred duties on 
his hands : exercising his courtesy to the refugees, condoling, 
reassuring ; inspecting the defences and the siege train ; 
superintending the victualling of the place. He had 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


193 


ordered his troops under arms in the meadows, and had 
spoken to them of what had passed at Gilderoy, and what 
might be looked for in the future. There seemed no lack 
of loyalty on their part. Flavian had ever been a magnani- 
mous and a generous overlord, glad to be merciful, and 
no libertine at the expense of his underlings. His feuda- 
tories were bound to him by ties more strong than mere 
legalities. They cheered him loudly enough as he rode 
along the lines in full armour, with fifty knights following 
as his guard. 

Night came. Outposts had been pushed forward to the 
woods, and a strong picket held the ford across the river. 
On the battlements guards went to and fro, and clarions 
parcelled out the night, and rang the changes. In the east 
there was a faint yellowish light in the sky, a distant glare 
as of a fire many miles away. In the camp men were 
ready to fly to arms at the first thunder of war over the 
hills. 

Flavian held a council in the great hall, a council at- 
tended by all his knights and captains. They had a great 
map spread upon the table, a chart of the demesnes of 
Gambrevault and Avalon, and the surrounding country. 
Their conjectures turned on the possible intentions of the 
rebels, whether they would venture on a campaign in the 
open, or lie snug within walls and indulge in raids and 
forays. And then — as to the loyalty of their own troops } 
On this point Flavian was dogmatic, having a generous 
and over-boyish heart, not quick to credit others with 
treachery. 

“ I would take oath for my own men,” he said ; “ their 
fathers have served my fathers ; I have never played the 
tyrant ; there is every reason to trust their loyalty.” 

An old knight. Sir Tristram, had taken a goodly share in 
the debate, a veteran from the barons’ wars, and a man of 
honest experience, no mere pantaloon. His grey beard 
swept down upon his cuirass ; his deep-set eyes were full 
of intelligence under his bushy brows j the hands that 


194 


LOFE AMONG THE RUINS 


were laid upon the table were clawed and deformed b) 
gout. 

“ Gentlemen,” he said, “ I have not the fitness and 
youth of many of you, but I can lay cl^m to some wis- 
dom in war. To my liege lord, whom, sirs, I honour as a 
man of soul, I would address two proverbs. First, despise 
not, sire, your enemies.” 

Modred laughed in his black beard. 

“ Reverence the scum of Gilderoy ? ” 

“ Ha, man, if we are well advised, these folk have been 
breathed upon by fanaticism. I tell you, I have seen a 
meanly-born crowd make a very stubborn day of it with 
some of the best troops that ever saw service. Secondly, 
sire, I would say to you, turn off your mercenaries if the 
sky looks black ; never trust your neck to paid men when 
any great peril threatens.” 

Flavian, out of his good sense, agreed with Tristram. 

“ Your words are weighty,” he said. “ So long as we are 
campaigning, I will pay them well and keep them. If 
it comes to a siege, I will have no hired bravos in Gam- 
brevault. And now, gentlemen, it is late ; get what sleep 
you may, for who knows what may come with the morrow. 
Modred and Geoffrey, I leave to you the visiting of the out- 
posts to-night. Order up my lutists and flute-players \ I 
shall not sleep without a song.” 

He passed alone to the outer battlements, and let the 
night expand about his soul, the stars touch his medita- 
tions. From the minstrels’ gallery in the hall came the 
wail of viols, the voices of flute, dulcimer and bassoon 
keeping a mellow under-chant. He heard the sea upon 
the rocks, saw it glimmering dimly to end in a fringe of 
foam. 

So his thoughts soared to the face of one woman in the 
world, the golden Eve peering out of Paradise, whose 
soul seemed to ebb and flow like the moan of the distant 
music. He fell into deep forecastings of the future. 
He remembered her words to him, her mysterious warn- 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


195 


ings, her inexplicable inconsistencies, her appeal to war. 
Gilderoy had taught him much, and some measure of 
truth shone like a dawn spear in the east. A gulf of 
war and vengeance stretched from his feet. Yet he let 
his soul circle like a golden moth about the woman’s 
beauty, while the wail of the viols stole out upon his 
ears. 


XXIX 


Little store of sleep had the Lord of Gambrevault that 
night. War with all its echoing prophecies played through 
his thought as a storm wind through the rotting casements 
of a ruin. He beheld the high hills red with beacons, the 
valleys filled with the surging steel of battle. Gilderoy 
and its terrors flamed through his brain. Above all, like 
the moon from a cloud shone the face of Yeoland, the 
Madonna of the Forest. 

He was up and armed before dawn, and on the topmost 
battlements, eager for the day. The sun came with 
splendour out of the east, hurling a golden net over the 
woods piled upon the hills. Mists moved from ofF the 
sea, that shimmered opalescent towards the dawn. Brine 
laded the breeze. The waves were scalloped amber and 
purple, fringed with foam about the agate cliffs. 

The hours were void to the man till riders should come 
in with tidings of how the revolt sped at Gilderoy and 
Geraint. The prophetic hints that had been tossed to 
him from the tongues of the mob had served to discover 
to him his own invidious fame. Gambrevault, on its 
rocky headland, stood, the strongest castle in the south, a 
black mass looming athwart the perilous path of war. 
The rebels would smite at it. Of that its lord was 
assured. 

At noon he attended mass in the chapel, with all his 
knights, solacing his impatience with the purer aspirations 
of the soul. It was even as he left the chapel that Sir 
Modred met him, telling how a galloper had left the 
woods and was cantering over the meadows towards the 
196 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


19; 


headland. The man was soon under the arch of the great 
gate, his sweating horse smiting fire from the stones, drop- 
ping foam from his black muzzle. The rider was Goda- 
mar, Flavian’s favourite esquire, a ruddy youth, with the 
heart of a Jonathan. 

Modred brought him to the banqueting-hall, where 
Flavian awaited him in full harness, two trumpeters at his 
back. 

“ Sire, Geraint has risen.” 

Ha ! ” 

“ They are marching on Gambrevault.” 

“Your news, on with it.” 

Godamar told how the troop had neared Geraint at eve 
and camped in the wood over night. At dawn they had 
reconnoitred the town, and seen, to their credit, black 
columns of “ foot ” pouring out by all the gates. The 
Gambrevault company had fallen back upon the woods 
unseen, and had watched the Gerainters massing in the 
city meadows about a red banner and one in armour upon 
a white horse. Godamar had lain low in a thicket and 
watched the rebels march by in the valley. They had 
passed between two hundred paces of him, and he swore 
by Roland the Paladin that it was a woman who rode the 
great white horse. 

Flavian had listened to the man with a golden flux of 
fancy that had divined something of the esquire’s meaning. 

“ Godamar,” he said. 

“ Sire ? ” 

“ You rode with me that day when we tracked a certain 
lady from Cambremont glade towards the pine forest.” 

“ Sire, you forestall me in thought.” 

“So?” 

“ I could even swear upon my sword that it is Yeoland 
of Cambremont who rides with the Gerainters.” 

Flavian coloured and commended him. Godamar ran 
on. 

“I threaded the thicket, sire, made a detour, galloped 


198 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


hard and rejoined our company. The Gerainters were 
blind as bats; they had never a scout to serve them. We 
kept under cover and watched their march. T. hey came 
due west in three columns, one following the other. Six 
miles from Geraint, Longsword gave me a- spare horse and 
sent me spurring to bring you the news.” 

Flavian stroked his chin and brooded. 

“ Their numbers ? ” he asked anon. 

‘‘Ten thousand men, sire, we guessed it such.” 

Before Godamar had ended his despatch, a second 
galloper came in breathless from Gilderoy. He had left 
Fulviac’s rebels massing in the meadows beyond the river, 
and had kept cover long enough to see the foremost 
column wheel westwards and take the road for Gambre- 
vault. The scout numbered the Gilderoy force at any- 
thing between eight and twelve thousand pikes. Fulviac 
had been on the march three hours. 

The Lord of Avalon stood forward in the oriel in the 
full light of the sun. Sea, hill, and woodland stretched 
before him under a peerless sky. There was the scent of 
brine in the breeze, the banner of youth was ablaze upon 
the hills. A red heart beat under his shimmering cuirass, 
red blood flushed his brain. It was a season of romance 
and of lusty daring, an hour when his manhood shone 
bright as his burnished sword. 

Thoughts were tumbling, moving over his mind like 
water over a wheel. Geraint stood ten leagues from 
Gambrevault, Gilderoy thirteen. The Geraint forces had 
been on the march six hours or more, the men of Gilderoy 
only three. Hence, by all the craft of Araby, they of Geraint 
were three hours and three leagues to the fore. Bad 
generalship without doubt, but vastly prophetic to the man 
figuring in the oriel, his fingers drumming on the stone 
sill. 

Strategy stirred in him, and waxed like a dragon created 
from some magic crystal into the might of deeds. The 
Lord of Gambrevault caught the strong smile of chivalry. 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


199 


A great venture burnt upon his sword. It was no un- 
certain voice that rang through the hall of Gambrevault. 

“ Gentlemen, to horse ! Trumpets, blow the sally ! Let 
every man who can ride, mount and follow me to-day. 
Blow, trumpets, blow ! ” 

The brazen throats brayed from the walls, their shrill 
scream echoing and echoing amid the distant hills. Their 
message was like the plunging of a boulder into a pool, 
smiting to foam and clamour the camp in the meadows. 
Swords were girded on, spears plucked from the sods, 
horses saddled and bridled in grim haste. In one short, 
stirring hour Flavian rode out from Gambrevault with 
twelve hundred steel-clad riders at his back. Those on 
the walls watched this mass of fire and colour thunder- 
ing over the meadows, splashing through the ford, smok- 
ing away to the east with trumpets clanging, banneroles 
adance. There was to be great work done that day. 
The sentinels on the walls gossiped together, and swore by 
their lord as he had been the King. 

Gambrevault and its towers sank back against the sky- 
line, its banner waving heavily above the keep. Flavian’s 
mass of knights and men-at-arms held over the eastern 
downs that rolled greenly above the black cliffs and the 
blue mosaics of the sea. A brisk breeze laughed in their 
faces, setting plumes nodding, banneroles and pensils aslant. 
Their spears rose like the slim masts of many sloops in a 
harbour. The sun shone, the green woods beckoned to 
the glittering mass with its forest of rolling spears. 

Flavian’s pride whimpered as he rode in the van with 
Modred, Godamar, who bore the banner of Gambrevault, 
and Merlion d’Or, his herald. The man felt like a Zeus 
with a thunderbolt poised in his hand. A word, the flash 
of a sword, the cry of a trumpet, and all this splendid 
torrent of steel would leap and thunder to work his will. 
The star of chivalry shone bright in the heavens. As 
for this woman on the white horse, the Madonna of the 
Pine Forest, God and the saints, he would charge the 


200 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


whole world, hell and its legions, to win so rich a 
prize. 

Turning northwards, with scouts scattered in the far 
van, they drew to wilder regions where the dark and sat- 
urnine outposts of the great pine forest stood solemn upon 
the hills. Dusky were the thickets against the sapphire 
sky, the cloud banners trailing in the breeze. The very 
valleys breathed of battle and sudden peril of the sword. 
Rounding a wood, they saw riders flash over the brow of a 
hill and come towards them at a gallop. The men drew 
rein before the great company of spears. Their leader 
saluted his lord, and glanced round grimly upon the sea of 
steel dwindling over the green slopes. 

“ Sire, we are well-fortuned.” 

“ Say on.” 

‘‘Ten thousand rebels from Geraint are on the march 
two miles away. Godamar has given you the news. We 
are on the crest of the wave.” 

Flavian tightened his baldric. 

“ Good ground to the east, Longsword ? ” 

“Excellent for ‘horse,’ sire.” 

“To our advantage ? ” 

“ Half a mile further towards Geraint there lies a grass 
valley, a league long, four furlongs from wood to wood. 
The rebels will march through it, or I am a dotard. 
There stands your chance, sire. We can roll down on 
them like a torrent.” 

Flavian took time by the throat, and called on his man 
of the tabard. 

“ Make me this proclamation,” quoth he : “ ‘ Gentlemen 
of Gambrevault, strike for King and chivalry. Let 
vengeance dye your swords. As for the lady riding upon 
the white horse, mark you, sirs, let her be as the Virgin out 
of heaven. We ride to take her and her banner. For 
the rest, no quarter and no prisoners. We will teach this 
mob the art of war.’ ” 

The man of the tabard proclaimed it as he was bidden. 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


201 


The iron ranks thundered to him like billows foaming about 
a rock. Modred claimed silence with uplifted sword. 

‘‘ Enough, gentlemen, enough. No bellowing. Muzzle 
your temper. We make our spring in silence, that we 
may claw the harder.” 

A line of hills lay before them, heights crowned with 
black pine woods, save for one bare ridge like a great 
scimitar carving the sky. Flavian advanced his companies 
up the slopes, halted them in a broad hollow under the 
brow of the hill. A last galloper had ridden in with hot 
tidings of the rebels. The Lord of Gambrevault, with Sir 
Modred and Longsword, cantered on to reconnoitre. They 
drew to a thicket of gnarled hollies on the hilltop, and 
looked down upon a long grass valley bounded north and 
south by woods. 

Half a mile away came the rebel vanguard, a black mass 
of footmen plodding uphill, their pikes and bills shining in 
the sun. Pennons and gonfalons danced here and there, 
while in the thick of the column flew the red banner of the 
Forest, girt about by the spears of Yeoland’s guard. She 
could be seen on her white horse in the midst of the press. 
The Gerainters were split into three columns, the second 
column half a mile behind the first, the third somewhat 
closer upon the second. They were marching without 
outriders, as though thoroughly assured of their own safety. 

Modred chuckled grimly through his black beard, and 
smote his thigh. 

‘‘ Fools, fools ! ” 

“ Devilish generalship,” quoth Longsword under his 
beaver. ‘‘ We can crush their van like a wheatfield before 
the rest can come up. What say you, sire, fewtre spears, 
and at them ? ” 

Flavian had already turned his horse. 

“No sounding of trumpets, sirs,” he said; “we will 
deal only with their van. Call up our companies. God 
and St. Philip for Gambrevault ! ” 

Over the bare ridge, with its barriers of sun-steeped 


202 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


trees, steel shivered and spears bristled, rank on rank, wave 
on wave. With a massed rhythm of hoofs, the flood 
crested the hill, plunged down at a gallop with fewtred 
spears. Knee to knee, flank to flank, a thousand streaks 
of steel deluged the hillside. Their trumpets throated now 
the charge ; the iron ranks clashed and thundered, rocked 
on with a rush of glittering shields. 

As dust rolling before a March wind, so the horsemen 
of Gambrevault poured down on the horde of wavering 
pikes. The storm had come sudden as thunder out of a 
summer sky. Before the hurtling impact of that bolt of 
war, the palsied ranks of foot crumbled like rotten timber. 
The Gerainters were too massed and too amazed to 
squander or give ground, to stem with bill and bow the 
rolling torrent of death. They were rent and trampled, 
trodden like straw under the stupendous avalanche of steel 
that crushed and pulverised with ponderous and invincible 
might. 

“ God and Gambrevault, kill, kill ! ” 

Such was the death-cry thundered out over the rebel 
van. The column broke, burst into infinite chaos. 
Yeoland’s guards alone stood firm, a tough core of oak 
amid rotten tinder. Over the trampled wreckage the 
fight swirled and eddied, circling about the knot of steel 
where the red banner flapped in the vortex of the storm. 

Yeoland sat dazed on her white horse, as one in the 
grip of some terrific dream. Nord was at her side, 
snarling, snapping his jaw like a wolf, his great iron 
mace poised over his shoulder. The red banner flapped 
prophetic above their heads. Around them the fight 
gathered, a whirlwind of contorted figures and stabbing 
steel. 

Yeoland’s eyes were on one figure in the press, a man 
straddling a big bay horse, smiting double-handed with 
his sword, his red plume jerking in the hot rush of the 
fight. She saw horse and man go down before him ; 
saw him buffet his way onward like a galley ploughing 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


203 


against wind and wave. His leaping sword and tossing 
plume came steady and strenuous through the girdle of 
death. 

Fear, pride, a hundred battling passions played like the 
battle through the woman’s mobile brain. She watched 
the man under the red plume with an intensity of feeling 
that made her blind to all else for the moment. Love 
seemed to struggle towards her in bright harness through 
the fight. She saw the last rank of the human rampart 
pierced. The man on the bay horse came out before her 
like some warrior out of an old epic. 

None save Nord stood between them, shaggy and grim 
as a great Norse Thor. She watched the iron mace 
swing, saw it fall and smite wide. Flavian stood in the 
stirrups, both hands to the hilt, his horse’s muzzle rammed 
against the opposing brute’s chest. The blow fell, a 
great cut laid in with all the culminating courage of an 
hour. The sword slashed Nord’s gorget, buried its blade 
in the bull-like neck. He clutched at his throat, toppled, 
slid out of the saddle and rolled under his horse’s hoofs. 

The man’s hand snatched at the girl’s bridle ; he 
dragged her and her horse out of the press. She had a 
confused vision of carnage, of stabbing swords and tram- 
pling hoofs. She saw her banner-bearer fall forward on his 
horse’s neck, thrust through with a sword, while Modred 
seized the banner staff from his impotent hand. The 
rebel column had deliquesced and vanished. In its stead 
she was girdled by grim and exultant horsemen whose 
swords flashed in the sun. 

Trumpets blew the retreat. A thousand glittering 
riders swarmed about her and the knight with the red 
plume. She had his words confusedly in her ears, strong, 
passionate words, heroic, yet utterly tender. They rode 
uphill together amid the clangour of his men. In a 
minute they had won the ridge, and were swinging down 
the further slope with their faces towards Gambrevault. 


XXX 


Paris and Helen have been dead centuries, yet in that uni- 
versal world of the mind they still live, young and glorious 
as when the Grecian galleys ploughed foam through the blue 
i^^gean. The world loves a lover. Troilus stages our own 
emotions for us in godlier wise than we poor realists can 
hope to do. We owe an eternal gratitude to those who 
have stood for love in history. All men might well desire 
to play the Tristan to Iseult of the Irish eyes. We forget 
Gemma Donati, and follow with Dante’s wistful idealism 
the gleaming figure of Beatrice in Paradise. 

Now the Lord Flavian was one of those happy persons 
who seem to stumble into heaven either by prodigious 
instinct or remarkable good-fortune. God gives to many 
men gold ; to others intellect ; to some truth ; to few, a 
human echo, a harmony in the spirit, the right woman in 
the world. Many of us are such unstable folk that we 
vibrate vastly to a beautiful face and hail heaven in a pair 
of violet eyes. The chance is that such a business turns 
out miserably. It is a wise rule to search the world through 
to find your Beatrice, or bide celibate to the end. Happy 
is the man whose instinctive choice is ratified by all the 
wisest poetry of heaven. Happy is he who finds a ruby as 
he rakes the ephemeral flower-gardens of life, a gem eternally 
bright and beautiful, durable, unchanging, flashing light ever 
into the soul. It is given to few to love wisely, to love 
utterly, to love till death. 

That summer day Flavian saw life at its zenith, as he 
rode through the woods on the way to Gambrevault. The 
horse had dropped to a trot, and the man had taken off his 

204 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


205 


helmet and hung it at his saddle-bow. He was still red 
from the melee ; his eyes were bright and triumphant. 
The girl at his side looked at him half-timidly, a tremor 
upon her lip, her glances clouded. The terrific action of 
the last hour still seemed to weigh upon her senses, and she 
seemed fated to be the sport of contending sentiments. No 
sooner had she struggled to some level of saintliness than 
love rushed in with burning wings, and lo, all the tinsel of 
her religion fell away, and she was a mere Eve, a child 
of Nature. 

Flavian watched her with the tenderness of a strong 
man, who is ready to give his life for the woman he 
serves. Love seemed to rise from her and play upon him 
like perfume from a bowl of violets ; her eyes transfigured 
him, and he longed to touch her hair. 

At last.” 

“ Lord ? ” 

“ Treat me as a man, I hate that epithet.” 

You are a great signor.” 

“ What are titles, testaments, etiquettes to us ! I am 
only great so long as you trust and honour me.” 

“Your power might appear precarious.” 

“ As you will.” 

“ Yet war is loose ! ” 

He looked round upon the sea of men that rolled on 
every hand. 

“ And war at its worst. I have seen enough in three 
days to make me loathe your partisans and their principles.” 

“ Perhaps.” 

“ It is a wicked and inhuman business.” 

What are you going to do with me ? ” she said. 

“ Remove you from the hands of butchers and olFal- 
mongers; put you like a pearl in a casket in my own 
castle of Gambrevault.” 

“ You incur the greater peril.” 

“ Have I not told you that no woman loves a coward ? ” 

She was silent awhile, with her eyes wistful and melan- 


206 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


choly, as though some spiritual conflict were passing in her 
mind. Bitterness escaped in the man’s words for all his 
tenderness and chivalry. He needed an answer. Anon 
she capitulated and appeared to surrender herself absolutely 
to circumstance. She began to tell Flavian of her adop- 
tion by Fulviac, of her vision in the ruined chapel, of the 
part assigned to her as a woman ordained by heaven. He 
heard her in silence, finding quaint pleasure in listening to 
her voice, having never heard her talk at such length be- 
fore. Her voice’s modulations, its pathos, its many tones, 
were more subtle to him than any music, and seemed to 
steep in oblivion the grim realities of the last few days. 
He watched the play of thought upon her face, sun and 
shadow, calm and unrest. He began to comprehend the 
discords he had flung into her life ; she was no longer a 
riddle to him ; her confessions portrayed her soul in warm 
and delicate colouring — colouring pathetic and heroically 
pure. He had a glorious sense of joy in an instinctive 
conviction that this girl was worthy of all the highest 
chivalry a man’s heart can conceive of. 

Though he had a strong suspicion that he could human- 
ise her Madonna for her, he refrained from argument, re- 
frained from dilating on the iniquities her so-called crusades 
had already perpetrated. Moreover, the girl had opened 
her heart to him with a delicious and innocent ingenuous- 
ness. He felt that the hour had blessed him sufficiently ; 
that personalities would be gross and impertinent in the 
light of that sympathy that seemed suddenly to have envel- 
oped them like a golden cloud. The girl appeared to have 
surrendered herself spiritually into his keeping, not sorry 
in measure that a strong destiny had decided her doubts 
for her. They were to let political considerations and the 
ephemeral turmoils of the times sink under their feet. It 
was sufficient for them to be but a man and a woman, to 
forget the forbidden fruit, and the serpent and his lore. 
God walked the world ; they were not ashamed to hear 
His voice. 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


207 


So they came with their glittering horde of horsemen 
to Gambrevault, and rode over the green downs with 
towers beckoning from the blue. The Gilderoy forces 
were still miles away, and could not have threatened the 
retreat on Gambrevault had they been wise as to the 
event. Yeoland rode close at Flavian’s side. He touched 
her hand, looked in her eyes, saw the colour stream to her 
cheeks, knew that she no longer was his enemy. 

“Yonder stands Gambrevault,” were his words; “its 
walls shall bulwark you against the world. Trust me and 
my eternal faith to you. I shall see God more clearly for 
looking in your eyes.” 

He lodged her in a chamber in the keep, a room that 
had been his mother’s and still held the furniture, books, 
and music she had used. Its window looked out on the 
castle garden, and over the double line of walls to the 
meadows and woods beyond. Maud, the castellan’s wife, 
was bidden to wait upon her. Flavian gave her the keys 
of his mother’s chests, where silks, samites, sarcenets galore, 
lace and all manner of golden fripperies, were stored. The 
ewers of the room were of silver, its hangings of violet 
cloth, its bed inlaid with ivory and hung with purple velvet. 
It had a shelf full of beautifully illumined books, a prayer- 
desk and a small altar, a harp, a lute, an embroidery frame, 
and numberless curios. Thus by the might of the sword 
Yeoland was installed in the great castle of Gambrevault. 

So Duessa and Balthasar were dead. The girl had told 
Flavian what had passed in Sforza’s palace; the news 
shocked him more than he would have dreamed. The 
dead wound us with their unapproachableness and the 
mute pathos of their pale, imagined faces. They are 
like our own sins that stare at us from the night sky, 
irrevocable and beyond us for ever. Flavian ordered 
tapers to be burnt and masses said in the castle chapel 
for the souls of these two unfortunates. He himself 
spent more than an hour in silent prayer before he con- 
fessed, received penance and absolution. 


208 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


That evening, at Flavian’s prayer, Yeoland came down 
to meet him in the castle garden, with the castellan’s two 
girls to serve her as maids of honour. She had put aside 
her armour, and was clad in a jacket of violet cloth, 
fitting close to the figure, and a skirt of light blue silk. 
In the old yew walk, stately and solemn, amid the bright 
parterres and stone urns gushing colour, the two children 
slipped away and left Yeoland and the man alone. 

She seemed to have lost much of her restraint, much 
of her independence, of her reserve, in a few short hours. 
Her mood inclined towards silence and a certain delight- 
ful solemnity such as a lover loves. Her eyes met the 
man’s with a rare trust ; her hands went into his with all 
the ideal faith he had forecast in his dreams. 

They stood together under the yews, full of youth and 
innocent joy of soul, timid, happily sad, content to be 
mere children. Flavian touched her hands as he would 
have touched a lily. She seemed too wonderful, too pure, 
too transcendent to be fingered. A supreme, a godly 
timidity possessed him ; he had such love in his heart as 
only the strong and the pure can know, such love as 
makes a man a saint unto himself, a being wrapped round 
with the rarest chivalry of heaven. 

Their words were very simple and infrequent. 

“ I have been thinking,” said the girl. 

« Yes?” 

“ How war seems ever in the world.” 

“ How else should I have won you ? ” 

She sighed and looked up over his shoulder at the sun- 
light glimmering gold through the yews. 

“ I have been thinking how I bring you infinite peril. 
They will not lose me easily. What if I bring you to 
ruin ? ” 

“ I take everything to myself.” 

“They believe me a saint.” 

“ And I ! ” 

“ My conscience will reproach me, but now ” 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


209 


“Well?” 

“ I am too happy to remember.” 

Their eyes met and flashed all the unutterable truths 
of the soul. Flavian kissed her hand. 

“ Forget it all,” he said, “ save the words I spoke to you 
over that forest grave. Whatever doom may come upon 
me, though death frown, I care not; all the sky is at 
sunset, all the world is full of song. I could meet God 
to-morrow with a smile, since you have shown me all 
your heart.” 

From a little stone pavilion hidden by laurels the 
voices of flutes and viols swirled out upon the air. The 
west grew faint, and twilight increased ; night kissed 
and closed the azure eyes of the day. Under the yew 
boughs, Flavian and Yeoland walked hand in hand ; the 
music spoke for them ; the night made their faces pale 
and spiritual under the trees. They said little ; a tremor 
of the fingers, a glance, a sigh were enough. When the 
west had faded, and the last primrose streak was gone, 
Flavian kissed the girl’s lips and sent her back to the two 
children, who were curled on a bench by the laurels, 
listening sleepily to the music of flute and viol. 

The man’s soul was too scintillant and joyous to shun 
the stars. He passed up on to the battlements, and 
listened to the long surge of the summer sea. 

And as he paced the battlements that night, he saw red, 
impish specks of flame start out against the black back- 
ground of the night. They were the rebel watchfires 
burning on the hills, sinister eyes, red with the distant 
prophecy of war. 


XXXI 


It would be difficult to describe the thundercloud of 
thought that came down upon Fulviac’s face when news 
was brought him of the capture of the girl Yeoland and the 
decimation of the vanguard from Geraint. There was 
something even Satanic upon his face for the moment. He 
was not a pleasant person when roused, and roused he was 
that day like any ogre. His tongue ran through the whole 
gamut of blasphemy before he recovered a finer dignity and 
relapsed into a grim reserve. His men spoke to him with 
great suavity. He had decreed that Nord of the Hammer 
should be hanged for negligence, but the decree was 
unnecessary, since Flavian’s sword had already settled the 
matter. 

The Gilderoy forces therefore turned northwards, with 
their great baggage and siege train, and in due course came 
upon the Gerainters bivouacking on the ridge where the 
battle had taken place. The green slopes were specked 
with dark motionless figures, dead horses, and the wreck- 
age of war. Men were burying the dead upon the battle- 
field. Yeoland’s guard had been slaughtered almost to a 
man ; and the whole affair had damped very considerably 
the ardour of certain of the less trustworthy levies. 

But Fulviac was, not the man to sit and snivel over a 
defeat ; he knew well enough that he had good men behind 
him, tough fighting stuff, fired by fanaticism and a long 
sense of wrong. He harangued his whole force, black- 
guarded with his lion’s roar those concerned in the march 
from Geraint, treating them to such a scourging with 
words that they snarled and clamoured to be led on at once 


210 


LOFE AMONG THE RUINS 


2II 


to prove their mettle. Their leaders had been at fault, 
nor did Fulviac keep their spirits cooling in the wind. 
The power of his own personality was great, and he had 
twenty thousand men at his back, who knew that to fail 
meant death and torture. They had received a check from 
the Lord of Gambrevault ; it was absolutely essential to 
the cause that they should wipe out the def^eat, recapture 
their Saint and sacred banner, crush Gambrevault once and 
for ever. To this strenuous tune they marched on 
towards the sea, and that night lit their fires on the hills 
that ringed Gambrevault on the north. 

As the sun climbed up and spread a curtain of gold over 
down and upland, those on the walls of Gambrevault saw 
steel glinting on the hills, the pikes and casques of Fulviac’s 
horde. Yeoland saw them from her casement, as she stood 
and combed her hair. Flavian, watching with certain 
knights on the keep, confronted the event with a merry 
smile. The shimmering line of silver on the hills had 
broadened to a darker band, splashed lavishly with steel. 
The rebel host was coming on in a half moon, with each 
horn to the sea. Its centre held towards the ford and the 
dismantled Gambrevault mills, positions strongly held on 
the southern bank by a redoubt and stockaded trenches. 

The criticisms delivered by those watching from the 
keep were various and forcible. 

“ By Jeremy — a rare mob ! ” 

“Let them grip at Gambrevault,’’ said Modred, “and 
they shall clutch at a cactus. Look at that long baggage 
train in the rear. Damn them, I guess they have the 
siege train from Gilderoy.” 

“We shall sweat a trifle.” 

Quoth Tristram, “ They have little time to spare for a 
leaguer, rotting in trenches, if they are to make the coun- 
try rise. They’ll not leaguer us.” 

Flavian watched the advance under his hand. 

“Fortunately or unfortunately, gentlemen,” he said, 
“ we have taken their Saint, their oracle, and their sacred 


212 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


banner. I imagine they will do their best to dispossess us. 

It is time we made for the meadows ; I reckon we shall 
have hot work to-day.” 

When leaving the keep, Flavian crossed the castle gar- 
den, and caught under the tunnel of yews the flutter of a 
woman’s gown. Sunlight glimmered through and wove a 
shimmering network in the air. Green and violet swept 
the stones ; a white face shone in the shadows. 

He went to her and kissed her hands. His eyes were 
brave and joyous as she looked into them, and there was 
no shadow of fear upon his face. Trumpets were blowing 
in the meadows, piercing the confused hum of men running 
to arms. 

‘‘ War, ever war ! ” 

“ You are sad ? ” 

“Fulviac has the whole kingdom at his back.” 

‘‘ If he led the world, I should not waver.” 

“ With me it is different ; I am a woman and you know 
my heart.” 

“ So well that I seek to know nothing else in the world, 

I desire no greater wisdom than my love. You are with 
me, and my heart sings. No harm can come to you what- 
ever doom may fall on Gambrevault.” 

“ Think you my thoughts are all of my own safety ? ” \ 

“Ah, golden one, never fear for me. What is life ?\ 
a little joy, a little pain, and then eternity. I would \ 
rather have an hour’s glory in the sun than fifty years ) 
of grey monotony. It is something to fight, and even 
to die, for the love of a woman. There is no shadow 
over my soul.” 

There was a great heroism in his voice, and her eyes 
caught the light from his. She touched his cuirass with 
her slim white fingers. 

“ God keep you ! ” 

“Ha, I do not smell of earth to-day, nor dream of 
requiems.” 

“ No, you will come back to me.” 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


213 


‘‘ Give me your scarf.” 

She took the green silk and knotted it about his arm ; 
a rich colour shone in her cheeks, her eyes were warm 
and wonderfully luminous. 

“ God keep you ! ” 

So he kissed her lips and left her. 

The rebel horde had rolled down in their thousands 
from the hills. Flavian saw their black masses moving 
from the woods, as he rode down from the great gate. 
It was evident to him that Fulviac would try and force 
the ford and win his way to the open meadows beyond. 
The river ran fast with a deep but narrow channel, and 
there was only one other ford some nine miles upstream. 
His own men were under arms in the meadows. With 
his knights round him, Flavian rode down to the redoubt 
and trenches by the river-bank, packed as they already 
were with archers and men-at-arms. He was loudly 
cheered as he reined in and scanned the rebel columns 
moving over the downs. 

Fulviac had ridden forward with a company of spears 
to reconnoitre. He saw the captured banner of The 
Maid hoisted derisively on Gambrevault keep ; he saw 
the redoubt and the stockades covering the ford ; the 
foot massed in the meadows ; Flavian’s mounted men-at- 
arms drawn up under the castle walls. Sforza and several 
captains of note were with Fulviac. The man was in a 
grim mood, a slashing Titanic humour. The passage of 
the river was to be forced, Flavian’s men engaged in the 
meadows. He would drive them into Gambrevault before 
nightfall. Then they would cast their leaguer, bring up 
the siege train taken from Gilderoy, and batter at Gambre- 
vault till they could storm the place. 

Early in the day Fulviac detached a body of two 
thousand men under Colgran, a noted free-lance, to march 
upstream, cross by the upper ford, and threaten Flavian 
on the flank. The fighting began at ten of the clock, 
when Fulviac’s bowmen scattered along the river and 


214 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


opened fire upon the stockades. Flavian’s archers and ar- 
balisters responded. A body of five thousand rebels advanced 
with great mantlets upon wheels to the northern bank and 
entrenched themselves there. A second body, with waggons 
laden with timber and several flat-bottomed boats, poured 
down to the river a mile higher up, and began to throw 
a rough, raft-like bridge across the stream. At half-past 
ten masses of men-at-arms splashed through the water at 
the ford, under cover of a hot fire from the archers lining 
the bank, and began an assault upon the redoubt and the 
stockades. 

By twelve o’clock the bridge higher up the stream had 
been completed, and a glittering line of pikes poured across, 
to be met on the southern bank by GeofFrey Longsword 
and a body of men-at-arms. It was hand to hand, and 
hot and strenuous as could be. Men grappled, stabbed, 
hacked, bellowed like a herd of bulls. Flavian had rein- 
forced the defenders of the ford, who still held Fulviac at 
bay, despite a heavy archery fire and the almost continuous 
assaults poured against the stockades. Yet by one o’clock 
Fulviac’s levies had forced the passage of the bridge and 
gained footing on the southern bank. Longsword’s men, 
outnumbered and repulsed, wer^ falling back before the 
black masses of foot that now poured into the meadows. 

The situation was critical enough, as Flavian had long 
seen, as he galloped hotly from point to point. Fulviac’s 
rebels had shown more valour than he had ever prophesied. 
Flavian packed all his remaining foot into the trenches, and 
putting himself at the head of his knights and mounted 
men-at-arms, rode down to charge the troops who had 
crossed by the pontoons. Here chivalry availed him to the 
full. By a succession of tremendous rushes, he drove the 
rebels back into the river, did much merciless slaughter, cut 
the ropes that held the bridge to the southern bank, so that 
the whole structure veered downstream. The peril seemed 
past, when he was startled by the cry that the redoubt had 
been carried, and that Fulviac held the ford. 


LOV£ AMONG THE RUINS 


215 


Looking south, he saw the truth with his own eyes. His 
troops were falling back in disorder upon Gambrevault, 
followed by an ever-growing mass, that swarmed exultantly 
into the meadows. The last and successful assault had 
been led by Fulviac in person. Flavian had to grip the 
truth. The rebels outnumbered him by more than five to 
one ; and he had underrated their discipline and fighting 
spirit. He was wiser before the sun went down. 

“ Come, gentlemen, we shall beat them yet.” 

“ Shall we charge them, sire ? ” 

“ Blow bugles, follow me, sirs ; I am in no mood for 
defeat.” 

That afternoon there was grim work in the Gambrevault 
meadows. Five times Flavian charged Fulviac’s columns, 
hurling them back towards the river, only to be repulsed in 
turn by the fresh masses that poured over by the ford. He 
made much slaughter, lost many good men in the mad, 
whirling melees. Desperate heroism inspired on either 
hand. Once he stood in great peril of his own life, hav- 
ing been unhorsed and surrounded by a mob of rebel pikes. 
He was saved by the devotion and heroism of Modred and 
his household knights. With the chivalry of a Galahad, he 
did all that a man could |o keep the field. Colgran’s flanking 
column appeared over the downs, and Fulviac had his whole 
host on the southern bank of the river. The masses advanced 
like one man, pennons flying, trumpets clanging. Flavian 
would have charged again, but for the vehement dissuasion 
of certain of his elder knights. He contented himself with 
covering the retreat of his foot, while the great gate of 
Gambrevault opened its black maw to take them in. Many 
of his mercenaries had deserted to the rebels. So stubborn 
and bloody had been the day, that he had lost close upon half 
his force by death and desertion j no quarter had been given 
on either side. He heard the surging shouts of exultation 
from the meadows, as he rode sullen and wearied into 
Gambrevault. The great gates thundered to, the portcullises 
rattled down. Fulviac had his man shut up in Gambrevault. 


XXXII 


The leaguer was drawn that night about the towers of 
Gambrevault, and the castle stood clasped betwixt the 
watch-fires and the sea. Fulviac’s rebels, toiling from 
evening until dawn, banked and staked a rampart to close 
the headland. From the north alone could Gambrevault 
be approached, precipices plunging south, east, and west 
to front the sea. Athwart the grassy isthmus Fulviac drew 
his works, running from cliff to cliff, brown earth-banks 
bristling with timber. Mortars, bombards, basilics, and 
great catapults had been brought from Gilderoy to batter 
the walls. Redoubts, covered by strong mantlets, were 
established in the meadows. Several small war galleys 
guarded the castle on the side of the sea. 

Nor was this labour permitted to pass unrebuked before 
the leaguered folk upon the headland. There were sallies, 
assaults, bloody tussles in the trenches, skirmishes upon 
the causeway. Yet these fiercenesses brought no flattering 
boon to the besieged. The knights and men-at-arms were 
masterful enough with an open field to serve them, but 
behind their barricades Fulviac’s rebels held the advantage. 
The command went forth from Modred the seneschal that 
there were to be no more sorties delivered against the 
trenches. 

On the second day of the leaguer the cannonade began. 
Bombard and mortar belched flame and smoke ; the huge 
catapults strove with their gigantic arms ; arbalisters 
wound their windlasses behind the ramparts. Shot 
screamed and hurtled, crashed and thundered against the 
walls, bringing down mortar and masonry in rattling 
216 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


217 


showers. The battlements of Gambrevault spouted flame ; 
archers plied their bows in bartisan and turret. A shroud 
of dust and smoke swirled about the place, the chaotic 
clamour of the siege sending the gulls wheeling and wail- 
ing from the cliffs. 

On the very second day Flavian was brought low by a 
shot hurling a fragment of masonry upon his thigh and 
bruising it to the bone. Stiff and faint, he was laid abed 
in his own state room, unable to stir for the twinging ten- 
dons, loth enough to lie idle. Modred, bluff, lusty smiter, 
took the command from him, and walked the walls. Hourly 
he came in to his lord’s chamber to tell of the cannonade 
and the state of the castle. Even Flavian from his 
cushions could see that the man’s black face looked grim 
and sinister. 

“ How do they vex us ? ” was his question, as the 
thunder came to them from the meadows. 

Modred clinked his heels against the wainscotting of 
the window seat, and strove to sweeten his looks. He was 
not a man given to blandishing the truth. 

“Their damned bombards are too heavy for us. We 
are dumb.” 

“ Impossible ! ” 

“ Sire, we shall have to hold Gambrevault by the 
sword.” 

The man on the bed started up on his elbow, only to 
fall back again with a spasmodic twitching of the forehead. 

“ And our bombards ? ” he asked. 

“ Are toppled off their trunnions.” 

« Ha ! ” 

“ For the rest, sire, I have ordered our men to keep 
cover. The bowmen shoot passably. The outer battle- 
ments are swept.” 

“ And the walls ? ” 

Modred grimaced and stroked his beard. 

“ There are cracks in the gate-house,” quoth he, “ that 
I could lay my fist in.” 


2i8 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


What goodlier fortune for a man than to lie bruised 
when Love bears to him the bowl of dreams ! What 
softer balm than the touch of a woman’s hand ! What 
more subtle music than her voice! The girl Yeoland had 
betrayed a new wilfulness to the world, in that she now 
claimed as her guerdon the care of the man’s heart. She 
was in and about his room, a shadow moving in the sun- 
light, a shaft of youth, supple and very tender. Her eyes 
had a rarer lustre, her face more of the dawn tint of the 
rose. Love stirred within her soul like the sound of angels 
psaltering on the golden battlements of heaven. 

As she sat often beside him, Flavian won the whole 
romance from her, gradual as glistening threads of silk 
drawn from a scarlet purse. She waxed very solemn over 
her tale, was timid at times, and exceeding sorrowful for 
all her passion. Some shadowy fear seemed to companion 
her beside the couch, some wraith prophetic of a tragic 
end. She loved the man, yet feared her love, even as it 
had been a sword shimmering above his head. Peril com- 
passed them like an angry sea ; she heard the bombards 
thundering in the meadows. 

‘‘ Ah, sire,” she said to him one morning, as she thrust 
the flowers she had gathered in the garden into a brazen 
bowl, “ I am heavy at heart. Who shall pity me ? ” 

He turned towards her on his cushions with a smile that 
was not prophetic of the tomb. 

“ Do I weary you ? ” 

“ Ah no, not that.” 

“ Why then are you sad ? ” 

She held up a white hand in the gloom of the room, 
her hair falling like a black cloud upon her bosom. 

“ Listen,” she said to him. 

“ I am not deaf.” 

“ The thunder of war.” 

“Well, well, my heart, should I fear it? ” 

“ It is I who fear.” 

“ Ah,” he said, taking her hand into his bosom, “ put 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


219 


such fears far from you. We shall not end this year in 
dust.” 

A week passed and the man was on the walls again, 
bold and ruddy as a youthful Jove. Seven days had gone, 
swelling with their hours the great concourse in the 
meadows. Pikes had sprouted on the hills like glisten- 
ing corn, to roll and merge into the girding barrier of 
steel. The disloyal south had gathered to Fulviac before 
Gambrevault like dust in a dry corner in the month of 
March. A great host teemed betwixt the river and the 
cliffs. Through all, the rack and thunder of the siege 
went on, drowning the sea’s voice, flinging a storm-cloud 
over the stubborn walls. In Gambrevault men looked 
grim, and muttered of succour and the armies of the King. 

Yet Flavian was content. He had taken a transcendent 
spirit into his soul ; he lived to music ; drank love and 
chivalry like nectar from the gods. The woman’s near- 
ness made each hour a chalice of gold. He possessed her 
red heart, looked deep into her eyes, put her slim hands 
into his bosom. Her voice haunted him like music out 
of heaven. He was a dreamer, a Lotos-eater, whose brain 
seemed laden with all the perfumes of the East. Ready 
was he to drain the purple wine of life even to the dregs, 
and to find death in the cup if the Fates so willed it. 

And Fulviac ? 

War had held a poniard at his throat, turning him to the 
truth with the threat of steel. Grim and implacable, he 
stalked the meadows, bending his brows upon the towers 
of Gambrevault. This girl of the woods was no more a 
dream to him, but supple love, ardent flesh, blood-red 
reality. Lean, leering thoughts taunted the lascivious fears 
within his brain. His moods were silent yet tempestuous. 
Gambrevault mocked him. Vengeance burnt in his palm 
like a globe of molten iron. 

His dogged temper roused his captains to strenuous de- 
bate. Fifty thousand men were idle before the place, and 
the siege dragged like a homily. Their insinuations were 


220 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


Strong and strident. The countryside was emptying its 
broad larder ; Malgo and Godamar of the Fens were 
marching from east and west. Ten thousand men could 
leaguer Gambrevault. It behoved Fulviac to pluck up 
his spears and march on Lauretia, proud city of the King. 

For a season Fulviac was stubborn as Gambrevault 
itself. His yellow eyes glittered, and he tossed back his 
lion’s mane from off his forehead. 

“ Till the place is ours,” so ran his dogma, “ I stir never 
a foot. See to it, sirs, we will put these skulkers to the 
sword.” 

His captains were strenuous in retort. 

You mar the cause,” said Sforza over the council-board, 
thin-lipped and subtle. 

Give me ten thousand men,” quoth Colgran the free- 
lance, “by my bones I will take the place and bring the 
Maid out scatheless.” 

Prosper the Priest put in his plea. 

“You are our torch,” he said, “our beacon. Malgo is 
on the march; Godamar has massed behind the creeks of 
Thorney Isle. The country waits for you. Leave Gam- 
brevault to Colgran.” 

And again the free-lance made his oath. 

“ Give me ten thousand men,” quoth he, “ by Peter’s 
blood the place shall tumble in a month.” 

That same evening, as a last justification of his stubborn 
will, Fulviac sent forward a trumpeter under a white flag 
to parley with the besieged. The herald’s company drew 
to the walls as the sun sank over the sea, setting the 
black towers in a splendour as of fire. Fulviac’s troops 
were under arms in the meadows, their pikes glittering with 
sinister meaning into the purple of the coming night. The 
Lord of Gambrevault, in full harness, met the white flag, 
his knights round him, a crescent of steel. 

Fulviac’s trumpeter proclaimed his terms. They were 
insolently simple, surrender absolute with the mere bless- 
ings of life and limb, a dungeon for the lords, a proffer of 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


221 


traitorous service to the men. Yeoland the Saint was to 
be sent forth scatheless. The castle was to be garrisoned 
and held by the rebels. 

Flavian laughed at the bluff insolence of the demand. 

‘‘ Ha, sirs,” he said, “ we are the King’s men here. 
Get you gone before my gate. Say to yonder traitor in the 
meadows, ‘ We quail not before scullions and at the frowns 
of cooks.’ ” 

Thus, under the red canopy of the warring west, ended 
the parley at the gate of Gambrevault. The white flag 
tripped back behind the trenches ; the castle trumpets blew 
a fanfare to grace its flight. Yeoland the Saint heard it, 
and her lamp of hope burnt dim. 

That night Fulviac paced the meadows, his eyes scanning 
the black mass upon the cliffs. Dark as was his humour, 
reason ruled him at the climax, powerful to extort the 
truth. Primaeval instincts were strong in him, yet he put 
them back that hour out of his heart. Robust and vigor- 
ous, he trampled passion under foot. At dawn his orders 
went forth to the captains and the council. 

‘‘ Colgran shall command. Ten thousand men shall 
serve him. Let him storm the place, grant no terms, 
spare Yeoland the Maid alone. Let him butcher the 
garrison, and let the ruin rot. When all have been put to 
the sword, let him march and join me before the city of 
Lauretia.” 


XXXIII 


So Fulviac with his host passed northwards from Gambre- 
vault, leaving Colgran and his ten thousand to guard the 
trenches. Flavian saw the black columns curl away over 
the green slopes, their pikes glittering against the blue 
fringe of the horizon, their banners blowing to the breeze. 
The red pavilion stood no longer in the meadows ; the 
man on the black horse rode no more behind the barricades. 
Ominous was the marching of the host over the hills, a 
prophecy of many battles before the King’s men could suc- 
cour Gambrevault. 

The gate-house stood in ruins, a shattered pile of 
masonry barriering the causeway from the meadows. The 
outer curtain wall on the north had been pierced between 
two towers ; the stone-work crumbled fast, opening a 
gradual breach to the rebel sea dammed behind the trenches. 
The battlements were rent and ruinous ; many a turret 
gaped and tottered. Still the bombards thundered, hurling 
their salvos of shot against the place, belching flame even 
through the night, while the arms of the great slings toiled 
like giant hands in the dark. 

As for the girl Yeoland, her joy was dim and flickering, 
mocked with constant prophecies of woe. The sounds of 
the siege haunted her perpetually. Shafts wailed and 
whistled, bombards roared, the walls reeked and cracked. 
A corner in the garden under the yew walk was the single 
nook left her open to the blue hope of heaven. The 
clamour of the leaguer woke a hundred echoes in her 
heart. Above all shone the man’s strong face and pas- 

222 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 223 

sionate eyes ; above the moon, the stars, the blue vault of 
day, death spread his sable wings, a cloud of gloom. 

On the sixteenth day of the siege, Colgran made an 
assault in force upon the ruins of the gate-house. Despite 
its chaotic state, Flavian clung to the ruin, and held the 
stormers at bay. Thrice Colgran’s rebels advanced to the at- 
tack, and came hand-to-hand with the defenders over the 
crumbling piles of stone ; thrice they were beaten back and 
driven to retreat upon their trenches. Colgran renounced 
the gate-house as impregnable ; the slings and bombards 
were turned upon the outer wall to widen the breach 
already made therein. 

It was plain enough even to Yeoland that the siege was 
bearing slowly yet surely against Gambrevault. More 
than half a month had passed, and still no succouring 
spears shone upon the hills, no sail upon the sea. Poor 
food and summer heat, the crowding of the garrison had 
opened a gate to fever and disease. She saw the stern and 
moody faces of the soldiery, their loyalty that took fresh 
and hectic fire from the courage of their lord. She saw 
the broken walls and ruined battlements, and heard the 
rebels shouting in their trenches. 

As the man’s peril grew more real and significant, a 
fear more vehement entered into her heart. Sleep left 
her ; she began to look white and weary, with dark 
shadows under her eyes. The man’s warm youth accused 
her like a tree that should soon be smitten by the axe. 
His fine heroism was a veritable scourge, making the 
future full of discords, a charnel-house glimmering with 
bleached bones. She began to know how closely their 
lives were mingled, even as wine in a cup of gold. He 
was lord and husband to her in the spirit. Her red heart 
quaked for him like the shivering petals of an autumn 
rose. 

On the day of the assault upon the gate-house, he 
came back to her wounded in the arm and shoulder. He 
was faint, but brave and even merry. She would suffer 


224 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


none to come in to him, as he sat in a carved chair in her 
room that opened on the garden. The sight of blood 
when harness and gamboison were taken from the caked 
wounds quickened her fears into a fever of self-torture. 
She bathed the wounds and dressed them with fragrant 
oil and linen. Twilight filled the room, and it was not 
till her tears fell upon his hand that the man found that 
she was weeping. 

He drew her towards him with sudden great tenderness, 
as she knelt and looked into his face. Her eyes swam 
with tears, her lips quivered. 

“ My life, why do you weep ? ” 

She started away from him with sudden strength, and 
stood by the window, trembling. 

“Give me my armour and my banner,” she said; “let 
me ride to the trenches and barter terms by my surrender. 
Sire, let me go, let me go.” 

He looked at her sadly under his brows, with forehead 
wrinkled. 

“ You would leave me ? ” 

“ Ah yes, to save you from the sword. Is it easy for 
me to ask you this ? ” 

“You crave more than I can give.” 

“ No, no.” 

“ I cannot surrender you.” 

“ And for love, you would doom all Gambrevault ! ” 

“ Ah ! ” he cried, “ I am wounded, and you would 
wound me the more.” 

She gave a whimper of pain, ran to him, and crept into 
his arms. As her sobs shook her, he bent many times and 
kissed her hair. 

“Weep not for me,” he said; “even when the end 
comes no harm can touch you. I cannot parley with 
these wolves; there are women and children under my 
roof ; should I open my gates to a savage mob ? ” 

“ This is your doom,” she said to him, 

“ I take it, child, from heaven.” 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


225 


She wept no more, for a richer heroism took fire within 
her heart. She knelt to the man while he held her 
face betwixt his hands, bent over her, and kissed her 
forehead. 

‘‘ Courage, courage, what is death ! ” 

“ My God, to lose you.” 

“ There, am I not flesh and blood ? God knows, I 
would rather have death than give you to these vultures.” 

She knelt before him with her face transfigured. 

“ And death, death can touch me also.” 


XXXIV 


August came in with storm and rain, and a dreary wind 
blew from the south-west, huddling masses of cloud over 
a spiritless sky. Southwards, the sea tumbled, a grey 
expanse edged with foam, its great breakers booming 
dismally upon the cliffs. The wind swept over Gambre- 
vault, moaning and wailing over battlement and tower, 
driving the rain in drifting sheets. The bombards still 
belched and smoked under their penthouses, and the arms 
of the catapults rose and fell against the sullen sky. 

The eighteenth night of the siege came out of the east 
like a thunder bank, and the grey shivering ghost of the 
day fled over the western hills. When darkness had fallen, 
the walls of Gambrevault were invisible from the trenches. 
Here and there a light shone out like a spark in tinder ; 
the sky above was black as a cavern, unbroken by the 
crack or cranny of a star. 

Flavian, fully armed, kept watch upon the breach with 
a strong company of men-at-arms. He had taken the ugly 
measure of the night to heart, and had prepared accordingly. 
Under the shelter of the wall men slept, wrapped in their 
cloaks, with their weapons lying by them. The sentinels 
had been doubled on the battlements, though little could 
be seen in the blank murk, and even the keep had to be 
looked for before its mass disjointed itself from the back- 
ground of the night. 

It was treacherous weather, and just the season fof an 
adventurous enemy to creep from the trenches and attempt 
to rush the breach. Flavian leant upon his long sword, 

226 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


227 


and brooded. The black ends of the broken wall stood up 
hugely on either hand ; rubble and fallen masonry paved 
the breach, and a rough rampart of debris had been piled 
along the summit. Around him shone the dull armour of 
his men, as they stood on guard in the rain. 

The storm deadened soul and body, yet kept Flavian 
vigilant with its boisterous laughter, a sound that might 
stifle the tramp of stormers pouring to the breach. He 
was not lonely, for a lover can do without the confidences 
of others, when he has a woman to speak with in his heart. 
In fancy he can lavish the infinite tenderness of the soul, 
caress, quarrel, kiss, comfort, with all the idealisms of the 
imagination. The spirit lips we touch are sweeter and 
more red than those in the flesh. To the true man love is 
the grandest asceticism the world can produce. 

Flavian’s figure straightened suddenly as it leant bowed 
in thought upon the sword. He was alert and vigilant, 

staring into darkness that baffled vision and hid the un- 

known. A dull, characterless sound was in the air. 
Whether it was the wind, the sea, or something more sin- 
ister, he could not tell. Calling one of his knights to his 
side, they stood together listening on the wreckage of the 
wall. 

A vague clink, clink, came in discord to the wind, a 

sound that suggested the cautious moving of armed men. 

A hoarse voice was growling warily in the distance, as 
though giving orders. The shrilling noise of steel grew 
more obvious each moment ; the black void below appeared 
to grow full of movement, to swirl and eddy like a lagoon, 
whose muddy waters are disturbed by some huge reptile at 
night. The sudden hoarse cries of sentinels rose from the 
walls. Feet stumbled on the debris at the base of the 
breach ; stormers were on the threshold of Gambrevault. 

K trumpet blared in the entry ; the guard closed up on 
theli'ampart ; sleeping men started from the shadows of the 
wall, seized sword and shield as the trumpets’ bray rang in 
their ears. Colgran’s stormers, discovered in their purpose. 


228 


LOF£ AMONG THE RUINS 


cast caution to the winds, and sent up a shout that should 
have wakened all Gambrevault. 

In the darkness and the driving rain, neither party could 
see much of the other. The stormers came climbing blindly 
up the pile of wreckage in serried masses. Flavian and 
his knights, who held the rampart, big men and large- 
hearted, smote at the black tide of bodies that rolled to their 
swords. It was grim work in the dark. It was no sleepy, 
disorderly rabble that held the breach, but a tense line of 
steel, that stemmed the assault like a wall. The stormers 
pushed up and up, to break and deliquesce before those 
terrible swords. Modred’s deep voice sounded through the 
din, as he smote with his great axe, blows that would have 
shaken an oak. There was little shouting ; it was breath- 
less work, done in earnest. Colgran’s men showed pluck, 
fought well, left a rampart of dead to their credit, a squirm- 
ing, oozing barrier, but came no nearer forcing the breach. 

They had lost the propitious moment, and the whole 
garrison was under arms, ready to repulse the attacks made 
at other points. Scaling ladders had been jerked forward 
and reared against the walls ; men swarmed up, but the 
rebels gained no lasting foothold on the battlements. They 
were beaten back, their ladders hurled down, masonry 
toppled upon the mass below. Many a man lay with neck 
or back broken in the confused tangle of humanity at the 
foot of the castle. 

Colgran ordered up fresh troops. It was his policy to 
wear out the garrison by sheer importunity and the stress 
of numbers. He could afford to lose some hundred men ; 
every score were precious now to Flavian. It was a sys- 
tem of counter barter in blood, till the weaker vessel ran 
dry. The Lord of Gambrevault understood this rough 
philosophy well enough, and husbanded his resources. He 
could not gamble with death, and so changed his men when 
the opportunity offered, to give breathing space to all. 
Conscious of the strong stimulus of personal heroism, he 
kept to the breach himself, and fought on through every 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


229 


assault with Modred’s great axe swinging at his side. He 
owed his life more than once to those gorilla-like arms 
and that crescent of steel. 

In the outer court, certain of the women folk with Yeo- 
land dealt out wine and food, and tended the wounded. In 
the chapel, tapers glimmered, lighting the frescoes and the 
saints, the priest chanting at the altar, the women and 
children who knelt in the shadowy aisles praying for those 
who fought upon the walls. Panic hovered over the pale 
faces, the fear, the shivering, weeping, pleading figures. 
There was little heroism in Gambrevault chapel, save the 
heroism of supplication. While swords tossed and men 
groped for each other in the wind and rain, old Peter the 
cellarer lay drunk in a wine bin, and lame Joan, who tended 
the linen, was snivelling in the chapel and fingering the gold 
angels sewn up in her tunic. 

Five times did Colgran’s men assault the breach that 
night, each repulse leaving its husks on the bloody wreck- 
age, its red libations to the swords of Gambrevault. The 
last and toughest tussle came during the grey prologue 
before dawn. The place was so packed with the dead and 
stricken, that it was well-nigh impassable. For some 
minutes the struggle hung precariously on the summit of 
the pass, but with the dawn the peril dwindled and elapsed. 
The stormers revolted from the shambles ; they had fought 
their fill ; had done enough for honour ; were sick and 
weary. No taunt, command, or imprecation could keep 
them longer in that gate of death. Colgran’s rebels 
retreated on their trenches. 

And with the dawn Flavian looked round upon the 
breach, and saw all the horror of the place in one brief 
moment. Cloven faces, hacked bodies, distortions, tor- 
tures, blood everywhere. He looked round over his own 
men ; saw their meagre ranks, their weariness, their wounds, 
their exultation that lapsed silently into a kind of desperate 
awe. Some tried to cheer him, and at the sound he felt an 
unutterable melancholy descend upon his soul. The men 


230 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


were like so many sickly ghosts, a wan and battered flock, 
a ragged remnant. He saw the whole truth in a moment, 
as a man sees life, death, and eternity pass before him in 
the flashing wisdom of a single thought. 

And this was war, this cataclysm of insatiate wrath ! 
His men were too few, too bustled, to hold the breach 
against such another storm. His trumpets blared the re- 
treat, a grim and tragic fanfare. They dragged out their 
wounded, abandoned the pile of rubbish for which they had 
fought, and withdrew sullenly within the inner walls. Col- 
gran, though repulsed, had taken the outer ward of Gam- 
brevault. 

As one stumbling from a dream, Flavian found himself 
in the castle garden. The place was full of the freshness 
that follows rain ; and it was not till the scent of flowers 
met him like an odour of peace, that he marked that the 
sky was blue and the dawn like saffron. The storm-clouds 
had gone, and the wind was a mere breeze, a moist breath 
from the west, bearing a curious contrast to the furious 
temper of the night. 

Flavian, looking like a white-faced debauchee, limped 
through the court, and climbed the stairway of the keep 
to the banqueting hall and his own state chambers. 
Several of his knights followed him at a distance and in 
silence. He felt sick as a dog, and burdened with unutter- 
able care, that weighed upon him like a prophecy. He 
had held the breach against heavy odds, and he was brood- 
ing over the cost. There was honour in the sheer physi- 
cal heroism of the deed; but he had lost old friends and 
tried servants, had sacrificed his outer walls ; there was 
little cause for exultation in the main. 

He stumbled into the banqueting hall like a man into a 
tavern. 

“ Wine, wine, for the love of God.” 

A slim figure in green came out from the oriel, and a 
pair of dark eyes quivered over the man’s grey face and 
blood-stained armour. The girl’s hands went out to him. 


LOFE AMONG THE RUINS 


231 


and she seemed like a child roused in the night from the 
influence of some evil dream, 

“You are wounded.” 

She took him by the arm and shoulder, and was able to 
force him into a chair, so limp, so impotent, was he for the 
moment. His face had the uncanny pallor of one who was 
about to faint \ his eyes stared at her in a dazed and wistful 
way. 

“ My God, you are not going to die ! ” 

He shook his head, smiled weakly, and groped for her 
hand. She broke away, brought wine, and began to 
trickle it between his lips. Several of his knights came 
in, and looked on awkwardly from the doorway at the 
girl leaning over the man’s chair, with her arm under his 
head. Yeoland caught sight of them, coloured and called 
them forward. 

The man’s faintness had passed. He saw Modred and 
beckoned him to his chair. 

“Take her away,” in a whisper. 

Yeoland heard the words, started round, and clung to 
his hand. There was a strange look upon her face. 
Flavian spoke slowly to her. 

“ Girl, I am not a savoury object, fresh from the 
carnage of a breach. Leave me to my surgeon. I would 
only save you pain. As for dying, I feel like an Adam. 
Go to your room, child ; I will be with you before long.” 

She held both his hands, looked in his eyes a moment, 
then turned away with Modred and left him. She was 
very pale, and there was a tremor about her lips. 

Irrelevant harness soon surrendered to skilled fingers. 
No great evil had been done, thanks to the fine temper 
of Flavian’s armour; the few gashes, washed, oiled, and 
dressed, left him not seriously the worse for the night’s 
tussle. Wine and food recovered his manhood. He was 
barbered, perfumed, dressed, and turned out by his 
servants, a very handsome fellow, with a fine pallor and 
a pathetic limp. 


LOJ^£ AMONG THE RUINS 


His first cafe was to see his own men attended to, the 
wounded properly bestowed, a good supply of food and 
wine dealt out. He had a brave word and a smile for 
all. As he passed, he found Father Julian the priest 
administering the Host to those whose dim eyes were 
closing upon earth and sky. 

Modred, that iron man, who never seemed weary, was 
stalking the battlements, and getting the place prepared 
for the next storm that should break. Flavian renounced 
responsibilities for the moment, and crossed the garden to 
Yeoland’s room. He entered quietly, looked about him, 
saw a figure prostrate on the cushions of the window 
seat. 

He crossed the room very quickly, knelt down and 
touched the girl’s hair. Her face was hidden in the 
cushions. She turned slowly on her side, and looked at 
him with a wan, pitiful stare ; her eyes were timid, but 
empty of tears. 

“ Ah, girl, what troubles you ? ” 

She did not look at him, though he held her hands. 

“ Are you angry with me ? ” 

“ No, no.” 

‘‘ What is it, then ? ” 

She spoke very slowly, in a suppressed and toneless 
voice. 

“ Will you tell me the truth ? ” 

He watched her as though she were a saint. 

“ I have had a horrible thought in my heart, and it has 
wounded me to death.” 

“Tell it me, tell it me.” 

“ That you had repented all ” 

“ Repented ! ” 

“ Of all the ruin I am bringing upon you ; that you were 
beginning to think ” 

He gave a deep cry. 

“ You believed that ! ” 

She lay back on the cushions with a great sigh. Flavian 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 233 

had his arms about her, as he bent over her till their lips 
nearly touched. 

‘‘ How could you fear ! ” 

“I am so much a woman.” 

«Yes ” 

“ And something; is all the world to me, even though ” 

Well ? ” 

“ I would die happy.” 

He understood her whole heart, and kissed her lips. 

“ Little woman, I had come here to this room to ask 
you one thing more. You can guess it.” 

“ Ah ” 

“ Father Julian.” 

She drew his head down upon her shoulder, and he knelt 
a long while in silence, with her bosom rising and falling 
under his cheek. 

“ I am happy,” he said at last ; “ child-wife, child-hus- 
band, let us go hand in hand into heaven.” 


XXXV 


So with Colgran and his rebels beating at the inner gate, 
Flavian of Gambre vault took Yeoland to wife, and was 
married that same eve by Father Julian in the castle 
chapel. There was pathetic cynicism in the service, 
celebrating as it did the temporal blending of two bodies 
who bade fair by their destinies to return speedily to dust. 
The chant might have served as a requiem, or a dirge for 
the fall of the mighty. It was a tragic scene, a solemn 
ceremony, attended by grim-faced men in plated steel, by 
frightened women and sickly children. Famine, disease, 
and death headed the procession, jigged with the torches, 
danced like skeletons about a bier. Trumpets and cannon 
gave an epithalamium ; bones might have been scattered 
in lieu of flowers, and wounds espoused in place of favours. 
For a marriage pageant war pointed to the grinning 
corpses in the breach and the clotted ruins. It was such 
a ceremony that might have appealed to a Stoic, or to a 
Marius brooding amid the ruins of Carthage. 

Peril chastens the brave, and death is as wine to the 
heart of the saint. Even as the sky seems of purer crystal 
before a storm, so the soul pinions to a more luminous 
heroism when the mortal tragedy of life nears the 
“ explicit.” As the martyrs exulted in their spiritual 
triumph, or as Pico of Mirandola beheld transcendent 
visions on his bed of death, when the Golden Lilies of 
France waved into luckless Florence, so Flavian and 
Yeoland his wife took to their hearts a true bridal beauty. 

When the door was closed on them that night, a 

234 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


235 


,f 

mysterious cavern, a spiritual shrine of gold, came down 
as from heaven to cover their souls. They had no need 
of the subtleties of earth, of music and of colour, of 
flowers, or scent, or song. They were the world, the sky, 
the sea, the infinite. Imperishable atoms from the alembic 
of God, they fused soul with soul, became as one fair gem 
that wakes a thousand lustres in its sapphire unity. To 
such a festival bring no fauns and dryads, no lewd and 
supple goddess, no Orphean flute. Rather, let Chri^ hold 
forth His wounded hands, and let the wings of arigels 
glimmer like snow over the alchemy of souls. " 

Flavian knelt beside the bed and prayed. He had the 
girPs hand in his, and her dark hair swept in masses over 
the pillow, framing her spiritual face as a dark cloud holds 
the moon. Her bed-gown was of the whitest lace and 
linen, like foam bounding the violet coverlet that swept 
to her bosom. The light from the single lamp burnt 
steadily in her great dark eyes. 

Flavian lifted up his face from the coverlet and looked 
long at her. 

‘‘ Dear heart, have no fear of me,” he said. 

She smiled wonderfully, and read all the fine philosophy 
of his soul. 

“ God be thanked, you are a good man.” 

“ Ah, child, you are so wonderful that I dare not touch 
you ; I have such grand awe in my heart that even your 
breath upon my face makes me bow down as though an 
angel touched my forehead.” 

“ All good and great love is of heaven.” 

“ Pure as the lilies in the courts of God. Every frag- 
ment of you is like to me as a pearl from the lips of 
angels ; your flesh is of silver, your bosom as snow from 
Lebanon, girded with the gold of truth. Oh, second 
Adam, thanks be to thee for thy philosophy.” 

She put out her hands and touched his hair ; their eyes 
were like sea and sky in summer, tranquil, tender, and 
unshadowed. 


236 


LOV£ AMONG THE RUINS 


“ I love you for this purity, ah, more and more than 1 
can tell.” 

“ True love is ever pure.” 

“And forme, such love as yours. Never to see the 
wolfish stare, the flushed forehead, and the loosened lip ; 
never to feel the burning breath. God indeed be thanked 
for this.” 

“ Have no fear of me.” 

“ Ah, like a white gull into a blue sky, like water into a 
crystal bowl, I give myself into your arms.” 


XXXVI 


A WEEK had passed, and the Gambrevault trumpets blew 
the last rally; her drums rumbled on the battlements of 
the keep where the women and children had been gathered, 
a dumb, panic-ridden flock, huddled together like sheep in 
a pen. The great banner flapped above their heads with a 
solemn and sinuous benediction. The sun was spreading 
on the sea a golden track towards the west, and the shouts 
of the besiegers rose from the courts. 

On the stairs and in the banqueting hall the last 
remnant of the garrison had gathered, half-starved men, 
silent and grim as death, game to the last finger. They 
handled their swords and waited, moving restlessly to 
and fro like caged leopards. They knew what was to 
come, and hungered to have it over and done with. It 
was the waiting that made them curse in undertones. 
A few were at prayer on the stone steps. Father Julian 
stood with his crucifix at the top of the stairway, and began 
to chant the “ Miserere ” ; some few voices followed 
him. 

In the inner court Colgran’s men surged in their hun- 
dreds like an impatient sea. They had trampled down the 
garden, overthrown the urns and statues, pulped the 
flowers under their feet. On the outer walls archers 
marked every window of the keep. In the inner court 
cannoneers were training the gaping muzzle of a bombard 
against the gate. A sullen and perpetual clamour sounded 
round the grey walls, like the roar of breakers about a head- 
land. 

Flavian stood on the dais of the banqueting hall and 

237 


238 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


listened to the voices of the mob without. Yeoland, 
in the harness Fulviac had given her, held at his side. 
The man’s beaver was up, and he looked pale, but calm 
and resolute as a Greek god. That morning his own 
armour, blazoned with the Gambrevault arms, had dis- 
appeared from his bed-side, a suit of plain black harness 
left in its stead. No amount of interrogation, no 
command, had been able to wring a word from his 
knights or esquires. So he wore the black armour now 
perforce, and prepared to fight his last fight like a gentle- 
man and a Christian. 

Yeoland’s hand rested in his, and they stood side by 
side like two children, looking into each other’s eyes. 
There was no fear on the girl’s face, nothing but a calm 
resolve to be worthy of the hour and of her love, that 
buoyed her like a martyr. The man’s glances were 
very sad, and she knew well what was in his heart when 
he looked at her. They had taken their vows, vows that 
bound them not to survive each other. 

“ Are you afraid, little wife ? ” 

“No, I am content.” 

“ Strange that we should come to this. My heart 
grieves for you.” 

“ Never grieve for me ; I do not fear the unknown.” 

“We shall go out hand in hand.” 

“To the shore of that eternal sea; and I feel no wind, 
and hear no moaning of the bar.” 

“ The stars are above us.” 

“ Eternity.” 

“ No mere glittering void.” 

“ But the face of God.” 

A cannon thundered ; a sudden, sullen roar followed, 
a din of clashing swords, the noise of men struggling in 
the toils. 

“ They have broken in.” 

Flavian’s grasp tightened on her wrist j his face was 
rigid, his eyes stern. 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


239 


“ Be strong,” he said. 

“ I am not afraid.” 

“ The Virgin bless you.” 

The uproar increased below. The rebels were storming 
the stairway ; they came up and up like a rising tide in the 
mazes of a cavern. A wave of struggling figures surged 
into the hall : men, cursing, stabbing, hewing, writhing on 
the floor, a tangle of humanity. Flavian’s knights in the 
hall ranged themselves to hold the door. 

It was then that Flavian saw his own state armour 
doing duty in the press, its blazonings marking out 
the wearer to the swords of Colgran’s men. It was 
Godamar, Flavian’s esquire, who had stolen his lord’s 
harness, and now fought in it to decoy death, and 
perhaps save his master. The mute heroism of the deed 
drew Flavian from the dais. 

“ I would speak with Godamar,” he said. 

“ Do not leave me.” 

“ Ah ! dear heart ; when the last wave gathers I shall be 
at your side.” 

Yeoland, with her poniard bare in her hand, stood and 
watched the tragic despair of that last fight, the struggling 
press of figures at the door — the few holding for a while 
a mob at bay. Her eyes followed the man in the black 
harness ; she saw him before the tossing thicket of pikes 
and partisans ; she saw his sword dealing out death in 
that Gehenna of blasphemy and blood. 

A crash of shattered glass came unheard in the uproar. 
Men had planted ladders against the wall, and broken in by 
the oriel ; one after another they sprang down into the hall. 
The first crept round by the wainscotting, climbed the dais, 
seized Yeoland from behind, and held her fast. 

As by instinct the poniard had been pointed at her own 
throat ; the thing was twisted out of her hand, and tossed 
away along the floor. She struggled with the man in a 
kind of frenzy, but his brute strength was too stiff and stark 
for her. Even above the moil and din Flavian heard her 


240 


L0V£ AMONG THE RUINS 


cry to him, turned, sprang back, to be met by the men who 
had entered by the oriel. They hemmed him round and 
hewed at him, as he charged like a boar at bay. One, two 
were down. Swords rang on his harness. A fellow dodged 
in from behind and stabbed at him under the arm. Yeo- 
land saw the black figure reel, recover itself, reel again, as 
a partisan crashed through his vizor. His sword clattered 
to the floor. So Colgran’s men cut the Lord Flavian down 
in the sight of his young wife. 

The scene appeared to transfer itself to an infinite dis- 
tance ; a mist came before the girl’s eyes ; the uproar 
seemed far, faint, and unreal. She tried to cry out, but no 
voice came ; she strove to move, but her limbs seemed as 
stone. A sound like the surging of a sea sobbed in her 
ears, and she had a confused vision of men being hunted 
down and stabbed in the corners of the hall. A mob of 
wolf-like beings moved before her, cursing, cheering, bran- 
dishing smoking steel. She felt herself lifted from her feet, 
and carried breast-high in a man’s arms. Then oblivion 
swept over her brain. 


PART IV 






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XXXVII 


Fortune had not blessed the cause of the people with that 
torrential triumph toiled for by their captains. The flood 
of war had risen, had overwhelmed tall castles and goodly 
cities, yet there were heights that had baulked its frothy 
turmoil, mountains that had hurled it back upon the valleys. 
Victory was like a sphere of glass tossed amid the foam of 
two contending torrents. 

In the west. Sir Simon of Imbrecour, that old leopard 
wise in war, had raised the royal banner at his castle of 
Avray. The nobles of the western marches had joined 
him to a spear j many a lusty company had ridden in, to 
toss sword and shield in faith to the King. From his castle 
of Avray Sir Simon had marched south with the flower of 
the western knighthood at his heels. He had caught Malgo 
on the march from Conan, even as his columns were de- 
filing from the mountains. Sir Simon had leapt upon the 
wild hillsmen and rebel levies like the fierce and shaggy 
veteran that he was. A splendid audacity had given the 
day as by honour to the royal arms. Malgo’s troops had 
been scattered to the winds, and he himself taken and be- 
headed on the field under the black banner of the house of 
Imbrecour. 

In the east, Godamar the free-lance lay with his troops 
in Thorney Isle, closed in and leaguered by the warlike 
Abbot of Rocroy. The churchman had seized the dyke- 
ways of the fens, and had hemmed the rebels behind the 
wild morasses. As for the eastern folk, they were poor 
gizardless creatures ; having faced about, they had declared 
for the King, and left Godamar to rot within the fens. 

243 


244 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


The free-lance had enough ado to keep the abbot out. His 
marching to join Fulviac was an idle and strategetical 
dream. 

Last of all, the barons of the north — fierce, rugged auto- 
crats, had gathered their half-barbarous retainers, and were 
marching on Lauretia to uphold the King. They were 
grim folk, flint and iron, nurtured amid the mountains and 
the wild woods of the north. They marched south like 
Winter, black and pitiless, prophetic of storm-winds, sleet, 
and snow. Some forty thousand men had gathered round 
the banner of Sir Morolt of Gorm and Regis, and, like the 
Goths pouring into Italy, they rolled down upon the luxu- 
rious provinces of the south. 

Fortune had decreed that about Lauretia, the city of the 
King, the vultures of war should wet their talons. It was 
a rich region, gemmed thick with sapphire meres set in 
deep emerald woods. Lauretia, like a golden courtesan, lay 
with her white limbs cushioned amid gorgeous flowers. 
Her bosom was full of odours and of music ; her lap lit- 
tered with the fragrant herbs of love. No perils, save those 
of moonlit passion, had ever threatened her. Thus it be- 
fell that when the storm-clouds gathered, she cowered 
trembling on her ivory couch, the purple wine of pleasure 
soaking her sinful feet. 

In a broad valley, five leagues south of the city, Fulviac’s 
rebels fought their first great fight with Richard of the Iron 
Hand. A warrior’s battle, rank to rank and sword to sword, 
the fight had burnt to the embers before the cressets were 
red in the west. Fulviac had headed the last charge that 
had broken the royal line, and rolled the shattered host 
northwards under the cloak of night. Dawn had found 
Fulviac marching upon Lauretia, eager to let loose the lusts 
of war upon that rich city of sin. He was within three 
leagues of the place, when a jaded rider overtook him, to 
tell of Malgo’s death and of the battle in the west. Yet 
another league towards the city his outriders came galloping 
back with the news that the northern barons had marched 


LOVE A ALONG THE RUINS 


245 


in and joined the King. Outnumbered, and threatened on 
the flank, Fulviac turned tail and held south again, trusting 
to meet Godamar marching from the fens. 

He needed the shoulders of an Atlas those September 
days, for rumour burdened him with tidings that were 
ominous and heavy. Godamar lay impotent, hedged in 
the morasses ; Malgo was dead, his mountaineers scattered. 
Sir Simon of Imbrecour was leading in the western lords 
to swell the following of the King. Vengeance gathered 
hotly on the rebel rear, as Fulviac retreated by forced 
marches towards the south. 

It was at St. Gore, a red-roofed town packed on a 
hill, amid tall, dreaming woods, that Colgran, with the 
ten thousand who had leaguered Gambrevault, drew to the 
main host again. Fulviac had quartered a portion of his 
troops in the town, and had camped the rest in the 
meadows without the crumbling, lichen-grown walls. He 
had halted but for a night on the retreat from Lauretia, 
and had taken a brief breath in the moil and sweat of the 
march. His banner had been set up in the market-square 
before a rickety hostel of antique tone and temper. His 
guards lounged on the benches under the vines ; his cap- 
tains drank in the low-ceilinged rooms, swore and argued 
over the rough tables. 

It was evening when Colgran’s vanguard entered the 
town by the western gate. His men had tramped all day 
in the sun, and were parched and weary. None the less, 
they stiffened their loins, and footed it through the streets 
with a veteran swagger to show their mettle. Fulviac 
came out and stood in the wooden gallery of the inn, 
watching them defile into the market-square. They tossed 
their pikes to him as they poured by, and called on him by 
name — 

“ Fulviac, Fulviac ! ” 

He was glad enough of their coming, for he needed 
men, and the rough forest levies were in Colgran’s ranks. 
Ten thousand pikes and brown bills to bristle up against 


246 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


the King’s squadrons ! There was strength in the glitter 
and the rolling dust of the columns. Yet before all, the 
man’s tawny eyes watched for a red banner, and a woman 
in armour upon a white horse, Yeoland, wife of Flavian 
of Gambrevault. 

In due season he saw her, a pale, spiritless woman, wan 
and haggard, thin of neck and dark of eye. The bloom 
seemed to have fallen from her as from the crushed petals 
of a rose. The red banner, borne by a man upon a black 
horse, danced listlessly upon its staff. She rode with slack 
bridle, looking neither to the right hand nor to the left, 
but into the vague distance as into the night of the past. 

Around her tramped Colgran’s pikemen in jerkins of 
leather and caps of steel. The woman moved with them 
as though they were so many substanceless ghosts, stalking 
like shadows down the highway of death. Her face was 
bloodless, bleached by grievous apathy and chill pride. The 
bronzed faces round her were dim and unreal, a mob of 
masks, void of life and meaning. Sorrow had robed her 
in silent snow. The present was no more propitious to 
her than a winter forest howling under the moon. 

Before the hostelry the column came to a halt with 
grounded pikes. The woman on the white horse stirred 
from her stupor, looked up, and saw Fulviac. He was 
standing with slouched shoulders in the gallery above her, 
his hands gripping the wooden rail. Their eyes met in 
a sudden mesmeric stare that brought badges of red to 
the girl’s white cheeks. There was the look upon his 
face that she had known of old, when perilous care 
weighed heavy upon his stubborn shoulders. His eyes 
bewildered her. They had a light in them that spoke 
neither of anger nor reproach, yet a look such as Arthur 
might have cast upon fallen Guinivere. 

They took her from her horse, and led her mute and 
passive into the steel-thronged inn. Up a winding stair 
she was brought into a sombre room whose latticed case- 
ments looked towards the west. By an open window 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


247 


Stood Fulviac, chin on chest, his huge hands clasped 
behind his back. Colgran, in dusky harness, was speaking 
to him in his rough, incisive jargon. The woman knew 
that the words concerned her heart. At a gesture from 
Fulviac, the free-lance cast a fierce glance at her, and 
retreated. 

The man did not move from the window, but stood 
staring in morose silence at the reddening west. Hunched 
shoulders and bowed head gave a certain powerful pathos 
to the figure statuesque and silent against the crimson 
curtain of the sky. The very air of the room seemed 
burdened and saturated with the gloomy melancholy of 
the man’s mood. War, with its thousand horrors, 
furrowed his brow and bowed his great shoulders beneath 
its bloody yoke. Her woman’s instinct told her that he 
was lonely, for the soul that had ministered to him breathed 
for him no more. 

He turned on her suddenly with a terse greeting that 
startled her thoughts like doves in a pine wood. 

“ Welcome to you. Lady of Gambrevault.” 

There was a bluff* bitterness in his voice that forewarned 
her of his ample wisdom. Colgran had surrendered her, 
heart and tragedy in one, to Fulviac’s mercy. A looming 
cloud of passion shadowed the man’s face, making him 
seem gaunt and rough to her for the moment. She remem- 
bered him standing over Duessa’s body in Sforza’s palace at 
Gilderoy. Life had too little promise for her to engender 
fear of any man, even of Fulviac at his worst. 

‘‘ I trust, Madame Yeoland, that you are merry ? ” 

The taunt touched her, yet she answered him listlessly 
enough. 

“ Do what you will ; scoff if it pleases you.” 

Fulviac shrugged his shoulders, and tossed his lion’s mane 
from his broad forehead. 

“ It is a grim world this,” he said ; “ when thrones 

burn, should we seek to quench them with our tears ! 
Whose was the fault that God made you too much a 


248 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


woman ? Red heart, heart of the rose, a traitorous com- 
rade art thou, and an easy foe.’’ 

She had no answer on her lips, and he turned and 
paced the room before her, darting swift glances into her 
face. 

“ So they killed him ? ” he said, more quietly anon ; 
“ poor child, forget him, it was the fate of war. Even to 
the grave he took the love I might never wear.” 

She. shuddered and hid her face. 

“ Fulviac, have pity ! ” 

“ Pity ? ” 

‘‘ This is a judgment, God help my soul ! ” 

‘‘ A judgment ? ” 

“ For serving my own heart before the Virgin’s words.” 

The man stopped suddenly in his stride, and looked at 
her as though her words had touched him like a bolt 
betwixt the jointings of his harness. There was still the 
morose frown upon his face, the half closure of the lids 
over the tawny eyes. He gripped his chin with one of 
his bony hands, and turned his great beak of a nose upwards 
with a gesture of self-scorn. 

‘‘ Since the damned chicanery of chance so wills it,” he 
said, ‘‘ I will confess to you, that my confession may ease 
your conscience. The Madonna in that forest chapel was 
framed of flesh and blood.” 

“Fulviac!” 

“ Of flesh and blood, my innocent, tricked out to work 
my holy will. We needed a Saint, we cleansers of Christen- 
dom ; ha, noble justiciaries that we are. Well, well, the 
Virgin served us, and tripped back to a warm nest at Gilde- 
roy, reincarnated by high heaven.” 

Yeoland stood motionless in the shadows of the room, 
like one striving to reason amid the rush of many thoughts. 
She showed no wrath at her betrayal ; her pale soul was 
too white for scarlet passion. The significance of life had 
vanished in a void of gloom. She stood like Hero striving 
to catch her lover’s voice above the moan of the sea. 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


249 


Fulviac unbuckled his sword and threw it with a crash 
upon the table. He thrust his arms above his head, 
stretched his strong sinews, took deep breaths into his 
knotted throat. 

“ The truth is out,” he said to her 5 “ come, madame, 
confess to me in turn.” 

Yeoland faced him with quivering lips, and a tense 
straining of her fingers. 

“ What have I to tell ? ” she asked. 

‘‘ Nothing ? ” 

Save that I loved the Lord Flavian, and that he is 
dead.” 

‘‘ Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” 

“ Ah, you are avenged,” she said, “ you have crushed my 
heart ; may the thought comfort you.” 

Her parched apathy seemed to elapse of a sudden, and 
she lost her calmness in an outburst of passion. She was 
athirst for solitude, to be cloistered from the rough cavil of 
the world. Colour glowed upon her sunken cheeks as she 
stretched out her arms to the man with a piteous vehemence. 

“ Fulviac ” 

“ Girl.” 

“Ah, for God’s love, end now this mockery. Take 
this armour from me, for it burns my bosom. Let me go, 
that I may hide my wounds in peace.” 

“ Peace ! ” he said, with a twinge of scorn. 

“Fulviac, can you not pity me? I am broken and 
bruised, men stare and jeer. Oh, my God, only to be out 
of sight and alone ! ” 

The man stood by the window looking out into the sky 
with lowering brows. The west burnt red above the 
house-tops ; from the street came the noise of men 
marching. 

“ Do not kill yourself,” he said with laconic brevity. 

“ Why do you say that ? ” 

“ There is truth in the suspicion,” 

“ Ah, what is life to me i ” 


250 


LOVE 4M0NG THE RUINS 


“We Christians still have need of you.’’ 

The man’s seeming scorn scourged her anguish to a 
shrill despair. The hot blood swept more swiftly through 
her worn, white body. 

“ Cursed be your ambition,” she said to him j “ must you 
torture me before the world ” 

“ Perhaps.” 

“ I renounce this lying part.” 

“ As you will, madame ; it will only make you look the 
greater fool.” 

“ Ah, you are brutal.” 

He turned to her with the look of one enduring un- 
uttered anguish in the spirit. His strong pride throttled 
passion, twisting his rough face into tragic ugliness. 

“No, believe it not,” he said; “ I desire even for your 
heart’s sake that you should make the best of an evil 
fortune. Learn to smile again ; pretend to a zest in life. 
I have fathomed hell in my grim years, and my words are 
true. Time loves youth and recovers its sorrow. Know 
this and ponder it : ’tis better to play the hypocrite than to 
suffer the world to chuckle over one’s tears.” 


XXXVIII 


The royal host had massed about the walls of Lauretia, 
and marched southwards to surprise Fulviac at St. Gore. 
Half the chivalry of the land had gathered under the 
standard of the King. Sir Simon of Imbrecour had come 
in from the west with ten thousand spears and five thousand 
bowmen. The Northerners under Morolt boasted them- 
selves twoscore thousand men, and there were the loyal 
levies of the midland provinces to march under “ The 
Golden Sun ” upon the south. Never had such panoply 
of war glittered through the listening woods. Their march 
was as the onrush of a rippling sea ; the noise of their trum- 
pets as the cry of a tempest over towering trees. 

Chivalry, golden champion of beauty, had much to 
avenge, much to expurgate. The peasant folk had plunged 
the land into ruin and red war. Castles smoked under the 
summer sky ; the noble dead lay unburied in the high places 
of pride. To the wolf cry of the people there could be no 
answer save the hiss of the sword. Before the high altar 
at Lauretia, the King had sworn on relics and the Scrip- 
tures, to deal such vengeance as should leave the land 
cowering for centuries in terror of his name. 

Southwards from St. Gore there stretched for some 
fifteen leagues the province of La Belle Foret, a region 
of rich valleys and romantic woods, green and quiet under 
the tranquil sky. Its towns were mere gardens, smothered 
deep in flowers, full of cedars and fair cypresses. Its 
people were simple, happy, and devout. War had not set 
foot there for two generations, and the land overflowed 

251 


252 LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 

with the good things of life. Its vineyards purpled the 
valleys ; its pastures harboured much cattle. Its houses 
were filled with rich furniture and silks, chests laden 
with cloth of gold, caskets of gems, ambries packed with 
silver plate. The good folk of La Belle Foret had held 
aloof from the revolt. Peace-loving and content in their 
opulence, they had no fondness for anarchy and war. 

It was into this fair province that Fulviac led his arms 
on the march south for Gilderoy and the great forest by 
the sea. Belle Foret, neutral and luxurious, was spoil for 
the spoiler, stuff for the sword. Plundering, marauding, 
burning, butchering, Fulviac’s rebels poured through like 
a host of Huns. Strength promised licence ; there was 
little asceticism in the cause, though the sacred banner 
flew in the van with an unction that was truly pharisaical. 
From that flood of war, the provincials fled as from a 
plague. It was Fulviac’s policy to devastate the land, to 
hinder the march of the royal host. Desolation spread 
like winter over the fields ; Fulviac’s ravagers left ruin 
and despair and a great silence to mark their track. 

The march became a bloody parable before three days 
had passed. Fulviac had taken burning faggots upon his 
back, and the iron collar of war weighed heavy on him 
that autumn season. It was a grim moral and a terrible. 
He had called up fiends from hell, and their antics mocked 
him. Storm as he would, even his strong wrath was like 
fire licking at granite. Death taunted him, and Murder 
rode as a witness at his side. The mob of mad humanity 
was like a ravenous sea, hungry, pitiless, and insatiate. 
Even his stout heart was shocked by the bestial passions 
war had roused. His men were mutinous to all restraint. 
Fight they would when he should marshal them ; but for 
their lusts they claimed a wolf-like and delirious liberty. 

Yeoland the Saint rode on her white horse through La 
Belle Foret, like a pale ghost dazed by the human miseries 
of war. A captive, she had surrendered herself to Fate ; 
her heart was as a sea-bird wearied by long buffetings in 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


253 


the wind. There was no desire in her for life, no spark of 
passion, no hope save for the sounding of a convent bell. 
She imagined calmly the face of death. Her grave 
stretched green and quiet to her fancy, under some forest 
tree. 

Even her hebetude of soul gave way at last before the 
horrors of that bloody march. She saw towns smoulder- 
ing and flames licking the night sky, heard walls crack 
and roofs fall with a roar and an uprushing of fire. She 
saw the peasant folk crouching white and stupefied about 
their ruined homes. She heard the cry of the children, the 
wailing of women, the cracked voices of old men cursing 
Fulviac as he rode by. She saw the crops burnt in the 
fields ; cattle slaughtered and their carcases left to rot in 
the sun. 

The deeds of those grim days moved in her brain with 
a vividness that never abated. War with all its ruthless- 
ness, its devilry, its riotous horror, burnt in upon her soul. 
The plash of blood, the ruin, the despair, appalled her till 
she yearned and hungered for the end. Life seemed to 
have become a hideous purgatory, flaming and shrieking 
under the stars. 

She appealed to Fulviac with the vehemence of despair. 
The man was obdurate and moody, burdened by the 
knowledge that these horrors were beyond him. His 
very impotence was bitterness itself to his strong spirit. 
In the silent passion of his shame, he buckled a sullen 
scorn about his manhood, scoffed and mocked when the 
woman pleaded. He was like a Titan struggling in the 
toils of Fate, flinging forth scorn to mask his anguish. 
He had let war loose upon the land, and the riot mocked 
him like a turbulent sea. 

One noon they rode together through a town that had 
closed its gates to them, and had been taken by assault. 
On the hills around stood the solemn woods watching 
in silence the scene beneath. Corpses stiffened in the 
gutters ; children shrieked in burning attics. By the cross 


254 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


in the market-square soldiers were staving in wine casks, 
the split lees mingling with the blood upon the cobbles. 
Ruffians rioted in the streets. Lust and violence were 
loose like wolves. 

Fulviac clattered through the place with Yeoland and 
his guards, a tower of steel amid the reeking ruins. He 
looked neither to the right hand nor the left, but rode with 
set jaw and sullen visage for the southern gate, and the 
green quiet of the fields. His tawny eyes smouldered 
under his casque ; his mouth was as stone, stern yet 
sorrowful. He spoke never a word, as though his 
thoughts were too grim for the girl’s ears. 

Yeoland rode at his side in silence, shivering in thought 
at the scenes that had passed before her eyes. She was as 
a lily whose pure petals quailed before the sprinkling plash 
of blood. Her soul was of too delicate a texture for the 
rude blasts of war. 

She turned on Fulviac anon, and taunted him out of the 
fulness of her scorn. 

“ This is your crusade for justice,” she said to him ; 
“ ah, there is a curse upon us. You have let fiends loose.” 

He did not retort to her for the moment, but rode 
gazing into the gilded glories of the woods. Even earth’s 
peace was bitter to him at that season, but bitterer far was 
the woman’s scorn. 

“ War is war,” he said to her at last ; “ we cannot leave 
the King fat larders.” 

“ And all this butchery, this ruin ? ” 

“ Blame war for it.” 

“ And brutal men.” 

“ Mark you,” he said to her, with some deepening of 
his voice, “ I am no god ; I cannot make angels of devils. 
The sea has risen, can I cork it in a bottle, or tie the 
storm wind up in a sack ? Give me my due. I am human, 
not a demi-god.” 

She understood his mood, and pitied him in measure, 
for he had a burden on his soul sufficient for a Hercules. 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


255 


His men were half mutinous ; they would fight for him, 
but he could not stem their lusts. He was as a stout ship 
borne upon the backs of riotous waves. 

“ Well would it have been,” she said, ‘‘ if you had never 
raised this storm.” 

“ It is easy to be wise at the eleventh hour,” he answered 
her. 

Can you not stay it even now ? ” 

“ Woman, can I stem the sea ! ” 

“ The blood of thousands dyes your hands.” 

He twisted in the saddle as though her words gored him 
to the quick. His face twitched, his eyes glittered. 

“ My God, keep silence ! ” 

“Fulviac.” 

“ Taunt me no longer. Have I not half hell boiling in 
my heart ? ” 

Thus Fulviac and his rebels passed on spoiling towards 
Gilderoy and the sea, where Sforza lay camped with forces 
gathered from the south. The great forest beckoned them ; 
they knew its trammels, and hoped for strategies therein. 
Like a vast web of gloom it proffered harbour to the wolves 
of war, for they feared the open, and the vengeful onrush 
of the royal chivalry. 

Meanwhile, the armies of the King came down upon 
Belle Foret, a great horde of steel. From its black ashes 
the country welcomed them with the dumb lips of death. 
Ruin and slaughter appealed them on the march ; the 
smoke of war ascended to their nostrils. Fierce was the 
cry for vengeance in the ranks, as the host poured on like 
a golden dawn treading on the dark heels of night. 


XXXIX 


In a cave w^hose narrow mouth cut a rough cameo from 
the snow and azure of the sky, a man lay sleeping upon a 
bed of heather. The surge of the sea rose from the 
bastions of the cliff, where foam glittered and swirled over 
the black rocks that thrust their dripping brows above the 
tide. Gulls were winging over the waves, whose green 
crests shone brilliant under the sun. On a distant head- 
land, bleak and sombre, the towers of a castle broke the 
turquoise crescent of the heavens. 

In one corner of the cave a feeble fire flickered, the 
smoke therefrom curling along the roof to vanish in a 
thin blue plume of vapour. Beside the bed lay a pile of 
armour, with a broken casque like a cleft skull to crown 
it. Dried herbs and a loaf of rye bread lay on a flat 
boulder near the fire. The figure on the heather was 
covered by a stained yet gorgeously blazoned surcoat, 
that seemed an incongruous quilt for such a couch. Near 
the cave’s entry a great axe glittered on the floor, an axe 
whose notched edge had tested the metal of many a 
bassinet. 

Down a rough path cut in the face of the cliff scrambled 
a gaunt, hollow-chested figure, doubleted in soiled scarlet, 
battered shoes on feet, a black beard bristling on the stub- 
born chin. A red cloth was bound about the man’s head. 
He breathed hard as he clambered down the cliff, as though 
winded by fast running. Sweat stood on his forehead. 
Beneath him ran the sea, a pit of foam, swirling and mut- 
tering amid the rocks. 

He reached the entry of the cave and dived therein like 
256 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


25; 


a fox into an ‘‘ earth.” Standing by the bed, he looked for 
a moment at the unconscious figure with the air of one 
unwilling to wake a weary comrade from his sleep. At 
last he went down on his knees by the heather, and 
touched the sleeping man’s cheek with the gentle gesture 
of a woman. The figure stirred at the touch ; two thin 
hands groped over the green and azure quilt. The kneel- 
ing man gripped them in his great brown paws, and held 
them fast. 

“ Modred.” . 

The voice was toneless, husky, and without spirit. 

“ Sire.” 

‘‘ Ah, these waking moments. It had been better if 
you had let me rot in Gambrevault.” 

“ Courage, sire, you wake to a better fortune.” 

“ There is new life in your voice.” 

“ The King has come at last.” 

The man on the heather raised himself upon one elbow. 
His face looked grey and starved in the half gloom of the 
cave. He lifted up one hand with a gesture of joy. 

“ The King ! ” 

Modred of the black beard smiled at him like a father. 
His hands trembled as he put the man back gently on the 
heather, and smoothed the coverlet. 

“ Lie still, sire.” 

“ Ah, this is life, once more.” 

“ Patience, patience. Let us have no woman’s moods, 
no raptures. Ha, I am a tyrannous dog. Did I drag you 
for dead out of Gambrevault to let you break your heart 
over Richard of Lauretia ! Lie quiet, sire ; you have no 
strength to gamble with as yet.” 

The man on the heather reached out again for Modred’s 
hand. 

“ The rough dog should have been born a woman,” he 
said to him. 

Modred laughed. 

“ There is a great heart under that hairy chest of yours.” 


258 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


The moist mutterings of the sea came up to them from 
the rocky shore beneath. Clouds in white masses pressed 
athwart the arch of day. Modred, seated on a boulder be- 
side the bed, eyed the prostrate figure thereon with a gaunt 
and tender pity. He was a stark man and strenuous, yet 
warm of heart for all his bull’s strength and steely sinew. 
Youth lay at his feet, thin and impotent, a white willow 
wand quivering beside a black and knotty oak. 

Modred rose up and stood by the opening of the cave, 
his broad shoulders well-nigh filling the entry as he looked 
out over the sea. Far over the amethystine waters, a hun- 
dred pearl-white sails glimmered beyond the cliffs of Gam- 
brevault. The sun smote on gilded prow and blazoned 
bulwark, and upon a thousand streamers tonguing to the 
breeze. 

Modred stretched out his great arms and smiled, a grim 
shimmer of joy over his ruffian’s face. Standing at the 
mouth of the cave, he began to speak to the man couched 
in the inner gloom. 

“ Yonder, beyond Gambrevault,” he said, “ I see a hun- 
dred sails treading towards us over the sea. They are the 
King’s ships : God cherish them ; their bulwarks gleam in 
the sun.” 

Flavian twisted restlessly amid the heather. 

“ A grand sight, old friend.” 

Modred stood silent, fingering his chin. His voice 
broke forth again with a bluff exultation that seemed to 
echo the roar of the waves. 

“ St. Philip, that is well.” 

“ More ships ? ” 

“ Nay, sire, they raise the royal banner on the keep of 
Gambrevault. I see spears shine. Listen to the shout- 
ing. The King’s men hold the headland.” 

This time the voice from the cave was less eager, 
and tinged with pain. 

“ Modred, old friend, I lie here like a stone while the 
trumpets call to me.” 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


259 


“Sire, say not so.” 

“ Ah, for an hour’s youth again, one day in the sun, 
one moment under the moon.” 

“ Sire, I would change with you if God would grant it 
me. 

“ Bless you, old friend j I would not grant it you if I 
were God.” 

A trumpet cried to them from the clifF, sudden, shrill, 
and imperious. Modred, leaning against the rock with his 
hand over his eyes, started from the cave, and began to 
climb the path. He muttered and swore into his beard as 
he ascended, queer oaths, spasmodic and fantastic. His 
black eyes were hazy for the moment. Contemptuous 
and fervid, he brushed the tears away with a great brown 
hand. 

On the green downs above him rolling to the peerless 
sky, he saw armour gleam and banners blush. A fan- 
fare of trumpets rolled over the sea. It was Richard the 
King. 

Modred bent at the royal stirrup, and kissed the jewelled 
hand. Above him a keen, steely-eyed visage looked out 
from beneath a gold-crowned bassinet. It was the face of 
a soldier and a tyrant, handsome, haughty, yet opulently 
gracious. The red lips curled under the black tusks of 
the long moustache. The big, clean-shaven jaw was a 
promontory of marble thrust forth imperiously over the 
world. 

“ Well, man, what of our warden ? ” 

Modred crossed himself, pointed to the clilF, muttered a 
few words into the King’s ear. 

“ So,” came the terse response, “ that was an evil for- 
tune. So splendid a youth, a bright beam of chivalry. 
Come, lead me to him.” 

The royal statue of steel dismounted and stalked down 
with knights and heralds towards the cliff. Leaning upon 
Modred’s shoulder, Richard of the Iron Hand trod the 
rough path leading to the little cave. He bowed his 


26 o 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


golden crown at the entry, stooped like a suppliant, stood 
before the Lord Flavian’s bed. 

The gloom troubled him for a moment. Anon, he saw 
the recumbent figure on the heather, the pile of harness, 
the brown loaf, and the meagre fire. He throned himself 
on the boulder beside the bed, and laid a white hand on 
the sick man’s shoulder. 

‘‘ Lie still,” he said, as Flavian turned to rise ; “ to-day, 
my lord, we can forego ceremony.” 

Courtesy is the golden crown of power, forged from a 
poet’s song, and the wisdom of the gods. The royal 
favour donned its robe of red that day, proffered its 
gracious signet to the lips of praise, held forth the sceptre 
of a radiant pity. Even the iron of truth becomes as 
silver on the lips of kings. Justice herself flatters, when 
ranged in simple white before a royal throne. 

“ My Lord of Gambrevault,” quoth Richard of the Iron 
Hand, “ be it known to you that your stout walls have 
saved my kingdom. You held the barbican of loyalty till 
true friends rallied to the country’s citadel. Bravely have 
you sounded your clarions in the gate of fame. My lord, 
I give to you the gratitude of a king.” 

Flattery strutted in the cave, gathering her robes with 
jewelled hand, gorgeous as an Eastern queen. Con- 
cerning the fate of a certain rebel Saint, the royal pardon 
waxed patriarchal in laconic phrases. 

‘‘ Say no more, my lord ; the boon is yours. Have I 
not a noble woman queening it beside me on my throne, 
flinging the beams of her bright eyes through all my life ? 
This quest shall be heralded to the host; I will offer 
gold for the damsel’s capture. Take this ring from me, no 
pledge as betwixt Jews, but as a talisman of good to come.” 

So spoke the royal gratitude. When the King had 
gone, Modred returned to carry his lord heavenwards to 
the meadows. He found him prone upon the heather, 
covering his eyes with his thin hands as the western 
sunlight streaked the gloom. 


LOV£ AMONG THE RUINS 


261 


“Sire,” said Modred, kneeling down beside the bed. 

The effigy on the heather stirred itself and reached out a 
hand into Modred’s bosom. 

“ Man, man, I am in great darkness of soul. Who shall 
comfort me ! ” 

Modred bent to him, laid a great palm on the white 
forehead. 

“ Courage, sire, courage.” 

“ Ah, the pity of it, to lie here like a log when swords 
ring and peril threatens her.” 

“ Sire, we shall win her back again.” 

“ My God, only to touch her hands once more, to feel 
the warmth of her pure bosom, and the thrill of her rich 
hair.” 

“We shall win her, sire. Doubt it not.” 

“ All life is a doubt.” 

“ Before God, I swear it ! ” 

“ Modred ! ” 

“ Before God, I swear it ! ” 

He sprang up, thrust out his arms till the sinews 
cracked, filled his great chest with the breath of the sea. 
Suddenly he stopped, strained at a rock lying at the cave’s 
mouth, lifted it, and hurled it from him, saw it smite 
foam from the water beneath. 

“Fate, take my gauge,” he cried, with a fierce glorying 
in his strength ; “ come, sire, put your hands about my 
neck. I will bear you to your castle of Gambrevault.” 


XL 


Fulviac and his rebels had plunged into the great pine 
forest for refuge from the multitudinous glitter of the royal 
spears. The wilderness engulfed them, throwing wide its 
sable gates to take the war wolves in. The trees moaned 
like tall sibyls burdened with prophetic woe. The gold 
had long fallen from the gorse ; the heather’s purple hills 
were dim. Mystery abode there ; a sound as of tragedy 
rose with the hoarse piping of the autumn wind. 

From the north and from the west the royal “arms” 
had drawn as a glittering net towards the sea of pines. 
A myriad splendid warriors streaked the wilds, like rich 
rods flowering at some magic trumpet cry. The King’s 
host swept the hills, their banners blazing towards the 
solemn woods. Gambrevault was theirs, and Avalon of 
the Mere. Morolt’s northerners had marched upon Ge- 
raint, to find it a dead city, empty of life and of human 
sound. Only Gilderoy stood out for Fulviac. The King 
had failed to leaguer it as yet, for reasons cherished in his 
cunning brain. 

Some twoscore thousand men had marched with Fulviac 
into the forest’s sanctuary. Over the hills the royal horse 
had pressed them hard, cutting down stragglers, hanging on 
their rear. Fulviac’s host was a horde of “ foot ” ; he had 
not a thousand riders to hurl against the chivalry of the 
King. On the bold, bleak uplands of the north and west 
the royal horsemen would have whelmed him like a sea. 
Necessity turned strategist at that hour. Fulviac and his 
rebels poured with their stagnant columns into the wilds. 

The thickets teemed with steel ; the myriad pike points 
glittered like silver moths through the dense green gloom. 

262 


LOFE AMONG THE RUINS 


263 


Once more the great clifF echoed to the clangour of war 
and the sword. Fulviac had drawn thither and camped 
his men upon the heights, and under the shadow of its 
mighty walls. Watch-fires smoked on the hills. Every 
alley had its sentinel, a net of steel thrown forth to await 
the coming of the King. Fulviac had gathered his cubs 
into this lair, trusting to trammel the nobles in the laby- 
rinths of the forest. It was a forlorn hope, the cunning 
purpose of despair. The spoilers of Belle Foret were wise 
in their generation ; little mercy would they win from the 
Iron Hand of Richard of Lauretia. 

Like a pale pearl set in ebony, Yeoland the Saint had 
been established again in her bower of stone. The room 
was even as she had left it that misty summer dawn. 
Prayer-desk, lute, and crucifix were there, mute relics of 
a passionate past. How much had befallen her in those 
packed weeks of peril ; how great a guerdon of woe had 
been lavished on her heart ! Love was as the last streak 
of gold in a fading west ; only the stars recalled the 
unwavering lamps of heaven. 

The clifF-room and its relics tortured her very soul. 
She would glance at the Sebastian of the casement, and 
remember with a shuddering rush of woe the man in 
whose arms she had slumbered as a wife. Death had 
deified him in her heart. She remembered his grey eyes, 
his splendid youth, his passion, his pure chivalry. He 
gazed down on her like a dream hero from a gloom of 
dusky gold. The bitter ecstasy of the past spoke to her 
only of the infinite beneficence of death. The grave 
yearned for her, and she had no hope to live. 

Those drear days she saw little of Fulviac. The man 
seemed to shirk her pale, sad face and brooding eyes. 
Her grief stung him more fiercely than all the flames 
nurtured in the glowing pit of war. Moreover, he was 
cumbered with the imminent peril of his cause, and the 
facing of a stormy fortune. His one hope lay in some 
great battle in the woods, where the King’s mailed chivalry 


264 


10V£ AMONG THE RUINS 


would be cumbered by the trees. He made many a feint 
to tempt the nobles to this wild tussle. The cliff stood as 
adamant, a vast bulwark to uphold the rebels. Yet 
Nature threatened him with other arguments. His stores 
were meagre, his mouths many. Victory and starvation 
dangled upon the opposing beams of Fate. 

If Fulviac feared procrastination, Richard of Lauretia 
favoured the same. Wise sluggard that he was, he curbed 
the vengeance of his clamorous soldiery, content to tempo- 
rise with the inevitable trend of fortune. His light horse 
scoured the country, garnering food and forage from the fat 
lands north of Geraint. Time fought for him, and the 
starving wolves were trapped. Sufficient was it that he 
held his crescent of steel upon the hills, leaving unguarded 
the barren wilds that rolled on Gilderoy towards the east. 

A week passed, dull and lustreless. The forest waved 
dark and solemn under the autumn sky ; no torrents of steel 
gushed from its sable gates ; no glittering squadrons plunged 
into its shadows. The King’s men lay warm about their 
watch-fires on the hills, fattening on good food, tingling for 
the trumpet cry that should herald the advance. Richard 
of the Iron Hand smiled and passed the hours at chess in 
his great pavilion pitched on the slopes towards Geraint. 
Simon of Imbrecour held the southern marches ; Morolt 
and his northerners guarded the west. 

It was grey weather, sullen and storm-laden, eerie of 
voice. The Black Wild tossed like a sombre sea over hill 
and valley, its spires rocking under the scurrying sky, its 
myriad galleries shrill with the cry of the wind. There 
was no rest there, no breathless silence under the frail moon. 
The trees moaned like a vast choir wailing the downfall of 
a god. The wild seemed full of death, and of the dead, as 
though the souls of those slaughtered in the war screamed 
about Fulviac’s lair. The sentinels, grey figures in a 
sombre atmosphere, watched white-faced in the thickets. 
The clarions of the storm might mask the onrush of the 
royal chivalry. 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


265 


Yeoland the Saint lay full length upon a carved settle 
before a dying fire. She was listening to the wind as it 
roared over the cliff, amid the shrill clamour of the trees. 
It was such an eve as when Flavian had rattled at the 
postern to offer her love, and a throne at Avalon. She had 
spoken of war, and war had sundered them, given death to 
desire, and a tomb to hope. The glow of the fire played 
upon the girl’s face and shone in her brooding eyes. Night 
was falling, and the gloom increased. 

She heard fogtsteps in the gallery, the clangour of a scab- 
bard against the rock. The door swung back, and Fulviac 
stood in the entry, clad in full harness save for his casque. 
There were deep furrows upon his forehead. His lids 
looked heavy from lack of sleep, and his eyes were blood- 
shot. The tinge of grey in his tawny hair had increased 
to a web of silver. 

He came in without a word, set his hands on the back 
of the settle, and stared at the fire. Yeoland had started 
up ; she sat huddled in the angle, looking in his face with 
a mute surmise. Fulviac’s face was sorrowful, yet strong 
as steel ; the lips were firm, the eyes sullen and sad. He 
was as a man who stared ruin betwixt the brows, nor 
quailed from the scrutiny though death stood ready on 
the threshold. 

“ Cloak yourself,” he said to her at last ; be speedy ; 
buckle this purse to your girdle.” 

She sprang up as the leather pouch rattled on the settle, 
and stood facing Fulviac with her back to the fire. 

“ Whither do we ride ? ” 

I send you under escort to Gilderoy.” 

“ And you ? ” 

He smiled, tightened his sword belt with a vicious ges- 
ture, and still stared at the hearth. 

“ My lot lies here,” he said to her ; “ I meet my doom 
alone. What need to drag you deeper into the dark ? ” 

She understood him on the instant, and the black thoughts 
moving in his mind. Disasters thickened about the cliff 5 


266 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


perils were clamorous as the wind-rocked trees. Fulviac 
feared the worst ; she knew that from his face. 

“You send me to Gilderoy ? ” she said. 

“ I have so determined it.” 

“ And why ? ” 

“ Need you doubt my discretion ? ” 

The flames flashed and gleamed upon his breastplate, 
and deepened the shadows upon his face. His eyes were 
sorrowful, yet full of a strenuous fire. 

“ The sky darkens,” he said to her, “ and the King’s 
hosts watch the forest. I had thought to draw them into 
the wilds, but the fox of Lauretia has smelt a snare. Our 
stores lessen ; we are in the last trench.” 

She moved away into a dark corner of the room, raised 
the carved lid of a chest, and began to draw clothes there- 
from, fingering them listlessly, as though her thoughts 
wavered. Fulviac leant with folded arms upon the settle, 
seemed even oblivious of her presence under the burden of 
his fate. 

“ Fulviac,” she said at last, glancing at him over a 
drooping shoulder. 

He turned his head and looked at her. 

“ Must I go then to Gilderoy ? ” 

“ The road is open,” he answered, with no obvious 
kindling of his sympathy ; “ there will be bloody work here 
anon ; you will be safer behind stone walls.” 

“ And the King ? ” she asked him. 

He straightened suddenly, like a man tossing some great 
burden from off his soul. 

“ Ha, girl ! are you blind as to what shall follow ? 
Richard of the Iron Hand waits for us with fivescore thou- 
sand men. We shall fight — by God, yes ! — and make a 
bloody endj there will be much slaughter and work for the 
sword. The King will crush us as a falling rock crushes 
a scorpion. There will be no mercy. Death waits. Put 
on that cloak of thine.” 

She stood motionless a moment, listening to the moan- 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


267 


ing of the wind. The man’s grim spirit troubled her. 
She remembered that he had bulwarked her in her home- 
less days, had dealt her much pity out of his rugged heart. 
He was alone now, and shadowed by death. Thus it 
befell that she cast the cloak aside upon the bed, and stood 
forward with quivering lips before the fire. 

“ Fulviac.” 

“ Little sister.” 

Ah ! God pardon me ; I have been a weak and grace- 
less friend. You have been good to me, beyond my grati- 
tude. The past has gone for ever ; what is left to me 
now ? Shall I not meet death at your side ? ” 

He stood back from her, looking in her eyes, breathing 
hard, combating his own heart. He loved the girl in his 
fierce, staunch way ; she was the one light left him in the 
gathering gloom. Now death offered him her soul. He 
tottered, stretched out his hands to her, snatched them back 
with a great burst of pride. 

“ No, this cannot be.” 

“ Ah ! ” 

“ I have dared the storm ; alone will I fall beneath its 
vengeance. You shall go this night to Gilderoy.” 

She thrust out her hands to him, but he turned away his 
face. 

“ Ah ! little sister, this war was conceived for God, but 
the devil leavened it. I have gambled with fire, and the 
ashes return upon my head. I give you life ; ’tis little I 
may give. Come now, obey me, these are my last words.” 

She turned from him very quietly in the shadow, 
hiding her face with her arm. Picking up her cloak, she 
drew it slowly about her shoulders, Fulviac watching her, 
a pillar of steel. 

“ They wait for you in the forest,” he said ; “ go down 
the stair. Colgran rides with you to Gilderoy. He is 
to be trusted.” 

She drooped her head, staggered to the door, darted back 
again with a low cry and a gush of tears. 


268 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


“ Fulviac.” 

“ Little woman.” 

“ God keep you ! Kiss me, this once.” 

He bent to her, touched her forehead with his lips, thrust 
her again towards the door. 

“ Go, my child.” 

And she went forth slowly from him, weeping, into the 
night. 



1 


XLI 


The prophecies of the King proved the power of their 
pinions before, fourteen suns had passed over the Black 
Wild’s heart. Richard of Lauretia had plotted to starve 
Fulviac into giving him battle, or into a retreat from the 
forest upon Gilderoy. The royal prognostications were 
pitiless and unflinching as candescent steel. It was no 
mere battle-ground that he sought, but rather an amphi- 
theatre where he might martyr the rebel host like a mob 
of revolted slaves. 

Whatever tidings may have muttered on the breeze, 
riders came in hotly to the royal pavilion towards the 
noon of the fourteenth day. There was soon much stir 
on the hills hard by Geraint. Knights and nobles 
thronged the royal tent, captains clanged shoulders, 
gallopers rode south and west with fiery despatches to 
Morolt and Sir Simon of Imbrecour. Battle breathed 
in the wind. Before night came, the King’s pavilion 
had vanished from the hills j his columns were winding 
round the northern hem of the forest, to strike the road 
that ran from Geraint to Gilderoy. 

The royal scouts and rangers had not played their 
master false. A river of steel was curling through the 
black depths of the wild, threading the valleys towards 
the east. The King’s scouts had caught the glimmer of 
armour sifting through the trees. They had slunk about 
the rebel host for days while they lay camped in their 
thousands about the cliff. Colgran and his small company 
had passed through unheeded, but they were up like hawks 
when the whole host moved. 

269 


2/0 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


That midnight Fulviac’s columns rolled from the out- 
standing thickets of the wild, and held in serried masses 
for the road to Gilderoy. The King’s procrastination had 
launched them on this last desperate venture. They 
would have starved in the forest as Fulviac had foreseen ; 
their hopes lay in reaching Gilderoy, which was well vict- 
ualled, throwing themselves therein, making what terms 
they could, or die fighting behind its walls. Thus under 
cover of night they slipped from the forest, trusting to 
leave the King’s men guarding an empty lair. 

The brisk forethought of Richard of Lauretia had out- 
gamed the rebels, however, in the hazardous moves of war. 
They were answering to his opening like wild duck paddling 
towards a decoy. Ten miles west of Gilderoy there 
stretched a valley, walled southwards by tall heights, banded 
through the centre by the river Tamar. At its eastern 
extremity a line of hills rolled down to touch the river. 
The road from Geraint ran through the valley, hugging 
the southern bank of the river after crossing it westwards 
by a fortified bridge. Fulviac and his host would follow 
that road, marching betwixt the river and the hills. It 
was in this valley that Richard of Lauretia had conceived 
the hurtling climax of the war. 

Forewarned in season. Sir Simon of Imbrecour and 
his bristling squadrons were riding through the night on 
Gilderoy, shaping a crescent course towards the east. 
Morolt and the giants of the north were striding in his 
track, skirting the southern spires of the forest, to press 
level with the rebel march, screened by the hills. The 
King and his Lauretians came down from Geraint. 
They were to seize the bridge across the Tamar, pour 
over, and close the rebels on the rear. 

It was near dawn when Fulviac’s columns struck the high- 
road from Geraint, and entered the valley where the Tamar 
shimmered towards Gilderoy. Mist covered the world, 
shot through with the gold threads of the dawn. The 
river gleamed and murmured fitfully in the meadows j 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


271 


the southern heights glittered in the growing day ; the 
purple slopes of the Black Wild had melted dimly into the 
west. 

The mist stood dense in the flats where the Geraint 
road bridged the river. The northern slopes seemed 
steeped in vapoury desolation, the road winding into a 
waste of green. Fulviac and his men marched on, chuck- 
ling as they thought of the royal troops watching the empty 
alleys of the forest. Fulviac took no care to secure the 
bridge across the Tamar. With the line of hills before 
them breasted, they would see the spires of Gilderoy, 
glittering athwart the dawn. 

The columns were well in the lap of the valley before 
two light horsemen came galloping in from the far van, 
calling on Fulviac, who rode under the red banner, that 
the road to Gilderoy had been seized. Fulviac and 
Sforza rode forward with a squadron of horse to recon- 
noitre. As they advanced at a canter, the mists cleared 
from the skirts of the encircling hills. Far to the east, 
on the green slopes that rolled towards the Tamar, they 
saw the sun smite upon a thousand points of steel. Pen- 
nons danced in the shimmering atmosphere, shields flickered, 
armour shone. A torrent of gems seemed poured from the 
dawn’s lap upon the emerald bosoms of the hills. They were 
the glittering horsemen of Sir Simon of Imbrecour, who had 
ridden out of the night and seized on the road to Gilderoy. 

Fulviac halted his company, and standing in the stirrups, 
scanned the hillside under his hand. He frowned, thrust 
forth his chin, turned on Sforza who rode at his side. 

‘‘Trapped,” he said with a twist of the lip; “Dick of 
the Iron Hand has fooled us. ’Twas done cunningly, 
though it brings us to a parlous passage. They hold the 
road.” 

The Gonfaloniere tugged at his ragged beard, and looked 
white under the arch of his open salade. 

“ Better advance on them,” he said ; “ I would give good 
gold to be safe in the streets of Gilderoy.” 


2/2 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


Fulviac sneered, and shook his head. 

“ There are ten thousand spears on yonder slopes, the 
lustiest blood in the land. Count their banners and their 
pennons, the stuff tells an honest tale. Pah, they would 
drive our rapscallions into the river. Send back and bid our 
banners halt.” 

They wheeled and cantered towards the long black 
columns plodding through the meadows. Far to the west 
over the green plain they saw spears flash against the sun, 
a glimmering tide spreading from the river. The Laure- 
tians had crossed the bridge and were hurrying on the 
rebels’ heels. Fulviac’s trumpets sounded the halt. He 
thundered his orders to his captains, bade them mass their 
men in the meadows, and hedge their pikes for the crash 
of battle. 

A shout reached him from his squadrons of horse who 
had marched on the southern wing. They were pointing 
to the heights with sword and spear. Fulviac reined round, 
rode forward to some rising ground, and looked southwards 
under his hand. The heights bounding the valley shone 
with steel. A myriad glistening stars shimmered under the 
sun. Morolt’s northerners had shown their shields ; the 
hills bristled with their bills and spears. 

Fulviac shrugged his shoulders, lowered his beaver, and 
rode back towards his men. He saw Yeoland the Saint’s 
red banner waving above the dusky squares. He remem- 
bered the girl’s pale face and the hands that had toyed with 
the gilded silks in the dark chamber upon the cliff. Though 
the sun shone and the earth glistened, he knew in his heart 
that he should see that face no more. 

Richard of Lauretia had forged his crescent of steel. 
South, east, and west the royal trumpets sounded ; north- 
wards ran the Tamar, closing the meadows. Fulviac and 
his men were trapped in the green valley. A golden girdle 
of chivalry hemmed the mob in the lap of the emerald 
meadows. All about them blazed the panoply of war. 

Fulviac, pessimist that he was, took to his heart that 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


273 


hour the lofty tranquillity of a Scandinavian hero. His 
courage was of that stout, sea-buffeting fibre that stiffened 
its beams against the tide of defeat. He set forth his shield, 
tossed up his sword, rode through the ranks with the spirit 
of a Roland. Life leapt the stronger in him at the chal- 
lenge of the Black Raven of death. His captains could 
have sworn that he looked for victory in the moil, so bluff 
and strenuous was his mood that day. 

Sforza came cringing to him, glib-lipped and haggard, 
to speak of a parley. Fulviac shook his shield in the man’s 
white face, set his ruffians to dig trenches in the meadows, 
and to range the waggons as a barricade. 

“ Parley, forsooth,” quoth he ; ‘‘ talk no more to me of 
parleys when I have twoscore thousand smiters at my back. 
Let Dick of the Iron Hand come down to us with the 
sword. Ha, sirs, are we stuffed with hay ! We will rattle 
the royal bones and make them dance a fandango to the 
devil.” 

His spirit diffused itself through the ranks of the rough 
soldiery. They cheered wheresoever he went, kindling 
their courage like a torch, and tossed their pikes to him 
with strenuous insolence. 

“ My children,” he would roar to them as he passed, 
“ the day has come, we have drawn these skulkers to a 
tussle. See to it, sirs, let us maul these velvet gentlemen, 
these squires of the cushion. By the Lord, we will feast 
anon in Gilderoy, and rifle the King’s baggage.” 

As for Richard of the Iron Hand, he was content to 
claim the arduous blessings of the day. He held his men 
in leash upon the hills, resting them and their horses after 
the marchings of the night. Wine was served out ; clar- 
ions and sackbuts sounded through the ranks; the King 
made his nobles a rich feast in his pavilion pitched by Sir 
Morolt’s banner. As the day drew on, he thrust strong 
outposts towards the meadows, ordered his troops to sleep 
through the long night under arms. Their watch-fires 
gemmed a lurid bow under the sky, with Tamar stringing 


274 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


it, a chord of silver. In the meadows the rebel masses 
lay a black pool of gloom under the stars. 

Fulviac sat alone in his tent at midnight, his drawn 
sword across his knees. His captains had left him, some 
to watch, others to sleep on the grass in their armour, 
Sforza the Gonfaloniere to sneak in the dark to the King's 
lines. Silence covered the valley, save for the voices of 
the sentinels and the sound of the royal trumpets blowing 
the changes on the hills. Their watch-fires hung athwart 
the sky like a chain of flashing rubies. 

Fulviac sat motionless as a statue, staring out into the 
night. Death, like a grey wraith, stood beside his chair ; 
the unknown, a black and unsailed sea, stretched calm and 
imageless beneath his feet. Life and the ambition thereof 
tottered and crumbled like a quaking ruin. Love quenched 
her torch of gold. The man saw the stars above him, 
heard in the silence of thought a thousand worlds surging 
through the infinitudes of the heavens. What then was 
this mortal pillar of clay, that it should grudge its dust to 
the womb of the world ? 

And ambition ? He thought of Yeoland and her wounded 
heart; of Gambre vault and Avalon; of La Belle Foret smok- 
ing amid its ruins. He had torched fame through the land, 
and painted his prowess in symbols of fire. Now that death 
challenged him on the strand of the unknown, should he, 
Fulviac, fear the unsailed sea ! 

His heart glowed in him with a transcendent insolence. 
Lifting his sword, he pressed the cold steel to his lips, 
brandished it in the faces of the stars. Then, with a 
laugh, he lay down upon a pile of straw and slept. 


XLII 


Dawn rolled out of the east, red and riotous, its crimson 
spears streaming towards the zenith. Over the far towers 
of Gilderoy swept a roseate and golden mist, over the pine- 
strewn heights, over Tamar silvering the valley. A wind 
piped hoarsely through the thickets, like a shrill prelude to 
the organ-throated roar of war. 

The landscape shimmered in the broadening light, green 
tapestries arabesqued with gold. To the east. Sir Simon’s 
multitudinous squadrons ran like rare terraces of flowers, 
dusted with the scintillant dew of steel. Westwards 
dwindled the long ranks of the Lauretians. On the 
heights, Morolt’s shields flickered in the sun. About a 
hillock in the valley, the rebel host stood massed in a great 
circle, a whorl of helmets, bills, and pikes; Fulviac’s red 
pavilion starred the centre like the red roof of a church 
rising above a town. 

On the southern heights, Richard of Lauretia had 
watched the dawn rise behind the towers of Gilderoy. 
He was on horseback, in full panoply of war, his gorgeous 
harness and trappings dazzling the sun. Knights, nobles, 
trumpeters were round him, a splendid pool of chivalry, 
while east and west stretched the ranks of the grim and 
gigantic soldiery of the north. 

Hard by the royal standard with its Sun of Gold, a 
corpse dangled from the branch of a great fir. It swayed 
slightly in the wind, black and sinister against the gilded 
curtain of the dawn. It was the body of Sforza the 
adventurer from the south, Gonfaloniere of Gilderoy, 
whom the King had hanged to grace his double treachery. 

275 


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LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


As the light increased, sweeping along the glittering 
frieze of war, Morolt of Gorm and Regis stood forward 
before the King. He was a lean man, tall and vigorous 
as a bow of steel, his black eyes darting fire under his 
thatch of close-cropped hair. The nobles had put him 
forward that morning as a man born to claim a boon upon 
the brink of battle. Fierce and virile, he bared his sword 
to the sun, and pointed with mailed hand to the rebel host 
in the valley. 

“ Sire, a boon for your loyal servants.” 

The King’s face was as a mask of steel heated to white 
heat, ardent and pitiless. He had the spoilers of his king- 
dom under his heel, and was not the man to flinch at 
vengeance. 

“ Say on, Morolt, what would ye ” 

“ We are men, sire, and these wolves have slaughtered 
our kinsfolk.” 

“ Am I held to be a lamb, sirs ! ” 

A rough laugh eddied up. Morolt shook his sword. 

“ Give them into our hand, sire,” he said ; “ there shall 
be no need of ropes and dungeons.” 

The iron men cheered him. Richard the King lifted 
up his baton ; his strong voice swept far in the hush of the 
dawn. 

Sirs,” he said to them, “ take the Black Leopard of 
Imbrecour for your pattern, rend and slay, let none escape 
you. Every man of my host wears a white cross on his 
sword arm. Let that badge only stay your vengeance. 
As for these whelps of treason, they have butchered our 
children, shamed our women, clawed and torn at their 
King’s throne. To-day who thinks of mercy ! Go down, 
sirs, to the slaughter.” 

A roar of joy rose from those rough warriors ; they 
tossed their swords, gripped hands and embraced, called on 
the saints to serve them. Strong passions were loose, 
steaming like the incense of sacked cities into heaven. 
There was much to avenge, much to expurgate. That 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


277 


day their swords were to drink blood ; that day they were 
to crush and kill. 

In the valley, Fulviac’s huge coil of humanity lay sullen 
and silent, watching the spears upon the hills. Their 
russets and sables contrasted with the gorgeous colouring 
of the feudalists. The one shone like a garden ; the other 
resembled a field lying fallow. The romance and pomp 
of war gathered to pour down upon the squalid realism of 
mob tyranny. Beauty and the beast, knight and scullion 
faced each other on the stage that morning. 

Gallopers were riding east and west bearing the King’s 
commands to Sire Julian, Duke of Layonne, who headed 
the Lauretians, and to Simon of Imbrecour upon the hills. 
The King would not tempt the moil that day, but left the 
sweat and thunder of it to his captains, content to play the 
Caesar on the southern heights. His commands had gone 
forth to the host. The first assault was to be made by 
twenty thousand northmen under Morolt, and a like force 
under Julian of Layonne. The whole crescent of steel 
was to contract upon the meadows, and consolidate its iron 
wall about Fulviac and his rebels. Simon of Imbrecour 
was to leash his chivalry from the first rush of the fight. 
His knights should ride in when the rebel ranks were 
broken. 

An hour before noon, the royal trumpets blew the 
advance, and a great shout surged through the shimmering 
ranks. 

‘‘ Advance, Black Leopard of Imbrecour.” 

“ Advance, Golden Sun of Lauretia.” 

“ Advance, Grey Wolf of the North.” 

With clarions and fifes playing, drums beating, banners 
blowing, the whole host closed its semilune of steel upon 
the dusky mass in the meadows. The northerners were 
chanting an old Norse ballad, a grim, ice-bound song of the 
sea and the shriek of the sword. Sir Simon’s spears were 
rolling over the green slopes, their trumpets and bugles 
blowing merrily. From the west, the Lauretians were 


278 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


coming up with their pikes dancing in the sun. Xhe 
thunder of the advance seemed to shake the hills. 

Fulviac watched the feudalists from beneath his banner 
in the meadows. His captains were round him, grim men 
and silent, girding their spirits for the prick of battle. 

“ By St. Peter,” said the man under the red flag, 
these fireflies come on passably. A fair host and a splen- 
did. If their courage suits their panoply, we shall have 
hot work to-day.” 

“ Faith,” quoth Colgran, who had returned from Gilde- 
roy, “ I would rather sweep a flower-garden than a muck- 
heap. We are good for twice their number, massed as we 
are like rocks upon a sea-shore.” 

“ To your posts, sirs,” were Fulviac’s last words to 
them ; “ whether we fall or conquer, what matters it if we 
die like men ! ” 

Billows of red, green, and blue, dusted with silver, 
Morolt and his Berserkers rolled to the charge. They 
had cast aside their pikes, and taken to shield and axe, such 
axes as had warred in the far past for the faith of Odin. 
P'ulviac’s rebels had massed their spears into a hedge of 
steel, and though Morolt’s men came down at a run, the 
spear points stemmed the onrush like a wall. 

Despite this avalanche of iron, the rebel ring stove off 
the tide of war. They were stout churls and hardy, 
these peasant plunderers j death admonished them ; despair 
tightened their sinews and propped up their shields. 
The shimmering flood swirled on their spear points like 
tawny billows tossing round a rock. It lapped and eddied, 
rushed up in spray, seeking an inlet, yet finding none. 
The Lauretian feudatories had swarmed to the charge. 
Fulviac withstood them, and held their panoply at bay. 

Richard the King watched the battle from the southern 
heights. He saw Morolt’s men roll down, saw the fight 
seethe and glitter, swirl in a wild vortex round the rebel 
spears. The war wolves gathered, the tempest waxed, 
and still the black ring held. Like steel upon a granite 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


279 

rock the onslaughts sparked on it, but clove no breach. 
Under the late noon sun the valley reeked with dust and 
din. The royal host was as a dragon of gold, gnashing 
and writhing about an iron tower. 

It was then that the King smote his thigh, plucked off 
his signet, sent it by Bertrand his herald to Sir Simon and 
his knights. 

“ Go down at the gallop,’’ ran the royal bidding, ‘‘ cleave 
me this rock, and splinter it to dust. Spare neither man nor 
horse. Cleave in or perish.” 

The black banner of Imbrecour flapped forth ; the 
trumpets clamoured. Sir Simon’s knights might well 
have graced Boiardo’s page, and girded Albracca with 
their stalwart spears. They tightened girths, set shields 
for the charge, and rode down nobly to avenge or fall. 

As a great ship sails to break a harbour boom, so did 
the squadrons of the King crash down with fewtred spears 
on Fulviac’s host. They rode with the wind, leaping 
and thundering like an iron flood. No slackening was 
there, no wavering of this ponderous bolt. It rushed 
like a huge rock down a mountain’s flank, smoking and 
hurtling on the wall of spears. 

The corn was scythed and trodden under foot. Ranks 
rocked and broke like earth before a storm-scourged sea. 
The spears of Imbrecour flashed on, smote and sucked 
vengeance, cleaving a breach into the core of war. The 
knights slew, took scarlet for their colour, and made 
the moment murderous with steel. Into the breach the 
King’s wolves followed them ; Morolt’s grim axemen 
stumbled in, rending and hurling the black mass to shreds. 
Battle became butchery. The day was won. 

What boots it to chronicle the scene that travelled as 
a forest fire in the track of Sir Simon’s chivalry ? The 
iron hand of the King closed upon the wrecked victims 
in the valley. Knight and noble trampled the peasantry ; 
rapine and lust were put to the sword. The Blatant 
Beast was slain by the spear of Romance. The boor and 


28 o 


LOV£ AMONG THE RUINS 


the demagogue were trodden as straw before the threshing- 
floor of vengeance. The fields were a shroud of scarlet ; 
Tamar ran like wine; thorn and bramble were fruited 
red with blood. On the heights the tall pines waved 
over the splendid masque of death. 

It was late in the day when Morolt and his hillsmen, 
with certain of Sir Simon’s knights, forced their way 
through the wreckage of the fight, to the hillock where 
stood the banner of the Saint. South, east, and west the 
rout bubbled into the twilight, a riot of slaughter seeth- 
ing to the distant woods. About Yeoland’s banner had 
gathered the last of the Forest brotherhood, grey wolves 
red to the throat with battle. Sullen and indomitable, 
they had gathered in a dusky knot of steel as the day sped 
into the kindling west. Even Morolt’s fierce followers 
stood still, like hounds that had brought the boar to bay. 
Simon of Imbrecour spurred out before the spears, lifted 
a shattered sword, and called on Fulviac by name. 

‘‘Traitor, we challenge ye.” 

A burly figure in harness of a reddish hue towered up 
beneath the fringe of the banner of the Saint. He carried 
an axe slanted over his shoulder, as he stood half a head 
above the tallest of his men. As Sir Simon challenged 
him, he lifted his salade, and bared his face to the war dogs 
who hemmed him in. 

“ Black Leopard of the West, we meet again.” 

The Lord of Imbrecour peered at him keenly from 
under his vizor. 

“ Come, sirs, and end it,” quoth the man in red, “ buflPet 
for buffet, and sword to sword. I fling ye a gauge to 
death and the devil. Come, sirs, let us end it; I bide 
my time.” 

Morolt sprang forward with sword aloft. 

“Traitor and rebel, I have seen your face before.” 

Fulviac laughed, a brave burst of scorn. He tossed his 
axe to them, and spread his arms. 

“ Ha, Morolt, I have foined with ye of old. Saints and 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


281 


martyrs, have I avenged myself upon the lap-dogs of the 
court ! Here v^^ill ^ve fight our last battle. Bury me, sirs, 
as Fulk of Argentin, the King’s brother, whom men 
thought dead these seven years.” 

A sudden silence hovered above that remnant of a beaten 
host. The red banner drooped, hung down about its staff. 
Morolt, uttering a strange cry, smote his bosom with his 
iron hand. Old Simon crossed himself, turned back and 
rode thence slowly from the field. 

Morolt’s voice, gruff and husky, sounded the charge. 
When he and • his war dogs had made an end, they took 
Fulviac’s head and bore it wrapped in Yeoland’s banner to 
the King. 


XLIII 


Under the starry pall of night, the last cry of the clarion 
of tragedy sounded over wood and meadow. Gilderoy, 
proud city of the south, had closed her gates against the 
royal host, wise at the eleventh hour as to the measure of 
the King’s mercy. The wreckage from the battle in the 
valley had washed on Tamar’s bosom past the walls, 
corpses jostling each other in the stream of death. Vul- 
tures had hovered in the azure sky. There was no doom 
for Gilderoy save the doom of the sword. 

The moon rose red amid a whorl of dusky clouds, veiled 
as with scarlet for the last orgies of war. Gilderoy had 
been carried by assault. Morolt’s barbarians were pouring 
through the streets; the gates yawned towards the night; 
bells boomed and clashed. The townsfolk were scurrying 
like rats for the great square where the remnant of the gar- 
rison had barricaded the entries, gathering for a death- 
struggle under the umbrage of the cathedral towers. 

Richard the King had ridden into Gilderoy by the 
northern gate with Sir Simon of Imbrecour and a strong 
guard of knights and men-at-arms. Fulviac’s head danced 
on a spear beside the Golden Banner of Lauretia. The 
citadel had opened its gates to Sire Julian of Layonne. In 
the square before the ruined abbey of the Benedictines the 
King and his nobles gathered to await the judgment of 
the hour. 

A great bell boomed through the night, a deep pant- 
ing sound in the warm gloom. Torrents of steel clashed 
through the narrow streets, gleaming under the torch flare, 
bubbling towards the last rampart of revolt. From the 

282 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


283 


cathedral square arose a wild, whimpering outcry, the 
wailing of women mingling with the hoarse clamour of the 
last assault. 

Word was brought to the King by one of Morolt’s 
esquires, that the townsfolk were holding the great square 
behind their barricades, and pouring a hot fire from the 
houses upon his troops. Morolt desired the King’s ring 
and his commands before taking to the resource of the 
sword. Richard of the Iron Hand was in no mood for 
mercy. His decree went forth from before the gate of the 
ruined abbey. 

“ Consider no church as a sanctuary. Fire the houses 
about the square. Gilderoy shall burn.” 

The city’s doom was sealed by those iron words. The 
torch took up the handiwork of the sword. A gradual 
glow began to rise above the house-tops ; smoke billowed 
up, black and voluminous, dusted with a myriad ruddy 
stars. Flames rose from casement and from gable, from 
chimney, spirelet, roof, and tower. The houses were faced 
with wood, dry as tinder, crisp for the torch as a summer- 
bleached prairie. The flames ran like a red flood from 
roof to roof, with a roar as from huge reptiles battling in a 
burning pit. The great square, with the glittering pin- 
nacles of its cathedral, was girded in with fire and sword. 

Men were stabbing and hewing upon the barricades 
where Morolt’s feudatories had stormed up from the 
gloom of the streets. Beneath the light of the burning 
houses, swords were tossed, the dead forgotten and trodden 
under foot. It was not long before the barriers were 
carried by assault and the avengers of Belie Foret poured 
pitiless into the great square. 

The citizens of Gilderoy had packed their women and 
children into the sanctuary of the cathedral choir. They 
were penned there amid the gorgeous gildings of the place, 
a shivering flock swarming in the frescoed chapels, huddled 
beneath the painted figures of the saints. The glow of 
the burning city beat in through the jewelled glass, building 


284 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


the huge aisles in a glittering cavern windowed with living 
gems. Darkness and dawn struggled and fought under the 
thundering vaults. From without came the wild babel, the 
hoarse death-moan of a people. 

In the great square the fight went on, a ruthless melee, 
strong and terrible. Gilderoyhad slaughtered her noblesse. 
She made expiation for the deed that night with the heart’s 
blood of her children. Vengeance and despair grappled 
and swayed in that great pit of death. The blazing streets 
walled in a red inferno, where passions ran like Satanic 
wine. Gilderoy, proud city of the south, quivered and 
expired beneath the iron gauntlet of the King. 

Modred of Gambrevault moved through the press with 
Morolt of the North fighting at his side. They had a 
common quest that night, a common watchword, chasten- 
ing the vengeance of their men. 

“Seek the Saint. Save Yeoland of Gambrevault.” 

It was as a hoarse shout, feeble and futile amid the bluster 
of a storm. What hope was there for this pale-faced 
Madonna amid the burning wreck of Gilderoy ? She was 
as a lily in a flaming forest. Modred sought for her with 
voice and sword, thinking of Flavian and the vow upon the 
cliflF. Though the city lightened, black Modred’s heart 
was steeped in gloom. Death and despair seemed armed 
against his hope. 

On the eastern quarter a little court stood back from the 
great square. A fountain played in the centre, the water- 
jet, thrown from a mermaid’s bosom, sparkling like a plume 
of gems. The walls of the court were streaked with flame, 
its casements tawny with yellow light. The breath of the 
place was as the breath of a furnace ; a quaking crowd 
filled it, driven to bay by the swords shining in the square. 

Modred was a tall man, a pine standing amid hollies. 
Staring into the murk of the court wreathed round with a 
garland of fire, he saw, above the heads of the crowd, a 
woman standing on the steps of the fountain, leaning 
against the brim of the basin. Her hair blew loose from 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


285 


under her open bassinet ; her white face like a flower was 
turned mutely to the night. A cuirass glimmered under 
her cloud of hair. Modred, when he saw her, sent up a 
shout like that of a wrecked mariner sighting a sail over 
tumbling waves. He tossed his sword, charged forward 
into the court, began to buffet his way towards the figure 
by the fountain. 

A knot of soldiery, taking his shout as a rallying cry, 
stormed after him into the court. There was a great crush 
in the entry, men tumbling in, and using their swords as 
poniards. The townsfolk were scattered like blown leaves 
towards the burning houses. In the hot turmoil of the 
moment the girl was swept from the fountain steps, and 
carried by a struggling bunch of figures towards a corner 
of the court. Modred lost sight of her for the moment, as 
he ploughed forward through the press. 

Flames were rushing from casement and from roof ; the 
breath of the place was as the breath of a burning desert. 
The Gilderoy rebels pent in the court were being put to 
the sword. Through the swirl of the struggle Yeoland’s 
bassinet shone out again. Modred saw her standing alone, 
shading her face with her hands like some wild, desperate 
thing, knowing not whither to escape. He pushed on, 
calling her by name. Before he could reach her the 
gabled front of a house undermined by the fire lurched for- 
ward, tottered, and came down with a roar. 

A blazing brand struck Modred on the helmet. He 
staggered, beheld a shower of sparks, felt a scorching wind 
upon his face. The stones were littered with crackling 
woodwork, glowing timber, reeking tiles. He was stunned 
for a moment as by the blow of a mace. Flames were 
leaping heavenwards from the houses, wiping out the mild 
faces of the stars with their ruthless hands. 

With a great cry Modred had started forward like a 
charging bull. He dragged aside the smouldering wreck- 
age of gable and roof, tore the rafters aside, nor heeded the 
heat, for his harness helped him. His great body quivered 


286 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


as he drew the girl out and lifted her from the stones. Her 
green kirtle was alight, and with the strong instinct of the 
moment he ran with her to the fountain and plunged her 
bodily in the broad basin. 

Panting, he bore her across the great square in his arms. 
Yeoland was making a little moaning whimper, but for all 
else lay quiet as a half-dead bird. Modred dared not look 
into her face; the scent of her scorched hair beat up into 
his nostrils. He ground his teeth and cursed Fate as he ran. 
Was it for this that they had bulwarked Gambrevault ? 


XLIV 


Autumn had cast her scarlet girdle about Avalon ; the 
woods were aflame with the splendours of the dying year. 
The oaks stood pavilions of green and gold ; the beeches 
domes of burnished bronze ; from their silver stems, birches 
fountained forth showers of amber. It was a season of 
crystal skies, of cloud galleons, bulwarked with gold, sailing 
the wine-red west. Wild Autumn wandered in the ruined 
woods, her long hair streaking the gilded gloom, her voice 
elfin under the stars. Even as she passed, the crisp leaves 
swirled and fell, a pall for the dying year. 

Avalon slumbered amid her lilies and the painted woods, 
gorgeous as rare tapestries, curtaining her meadows. Her 
mere laughed and glimmered amid the flags and lily leaves, 
and lapped at the lichened bases of her towers. Avalon 
had arisen from her desolation. No longer were her 
chambers void, her gates broken, her courts the haunt of 
death. The bat and the screech-owl had fled from her 
towers. She had lifted up her face to the dawn, like a 
mourner who turns from the grave to gaze again upon 
the golden face of joy. 

Time with his scythe of silver rested on the hills. The 
black dragon of war had crawled sated to the labyrinths of 
the past ; the red throne of ambition had been consumed 
by fire. Peace came forth with her white-faced choir, 
swinging their golden censers, shedding a purple perfume 
of hope over the blackened land. The death wolves had 
slunk to the wilds, the vultures had soared from the fields. 

287 


288 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


A splendid calm had descended upon the land, a silence 
as of heaven after the hideous masque of war. The cloud- 
wrack and thunder had passed from the sky. Men heard 
again the voice of God. 

Six weeks had gone since the sacking of Gilderoy, and 
dead Duessa’s bower in Avalon had been garnished for a 
second mistress. A white rose lurked in a whorl of green. 
The oriel, with its re-jewelled glass, looked out upon the 
transient splendours of the woods. Tapestry clothed the 
walls, showing knights and maidens wandering through 
flowering meads. Rare furniture had been taken from the 
wrecked palaces of Gilderoy and given to the Lord Flavian 
by the King. 

That autumntide Modred played seneschal in Avalon. 
He had cleansed and regarnished the castle by his lord’s 
command, and garrisoned it with men taken from the 
King’s own guard. Moreover, in Gilderoy he had found 
an old man groping miserlike amid the ruins, filthy and 
querulous. The pantaloon when challenged had confessed 
to the name of Aurelius, and the profession of Medicine 
by royal patent in that city. The townsfolk had spared 
his pompous neck for the sake of the benefits of his craft. 
From the fat, proud, prosperous worthy he had cringed 
into a wrinkled, flap-cheeked beggar. Him Modred had 
caught like a veritable pearl from the gutter, and brought 
with other household perquisites into Avalon. 

In this rich refuge Aurelius awoke as from an unsavoury 
and penurious dream. He regained some of his plump, sage 
swagger, his rotund phraseology, his autocratic dogmatism 
in matters iTsculapian. The atmosphere of Avalon agreed 
with his gullet. Above all things, he was held to be a man 
of tact. 

In dead Duessa’s bower there still hung her mirror of 
steel, whose sheeny surface had often answered to her 
languorous eyes and moon-white face. Duessa’s hair had 
glimmered before this good friend’s flattery. Gems, neck- 
let, broideries, and tiars had sunk deep into its magic mem- 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


289 


ory. The mirror could have told truths and expounded 
philosophies, had there been some Merlin to conjure with 
the past. 

Aurelius of Gilderoy played the necromancer under 
more rational auspices. He was a benignant soul, subtle, 
sympathetic to the brink of dotage. His professional hint 
was that dead Duessa’s mirror should be exiled from the 
bower of Avalon. The oracle spoke with much benefi- 
cence as to the delusions of the sick, and the demoniac in- 
fluence of melancholy upon the brain. Yet his wisdom 
was withstood in the very quarter where he had trusted to 
find obedience and understanding. Dead Duessa’s mirror 
still hung in the Lady Yeoland’s bower. 

One calm evening, when the west stood a great arch of 
ruddy gold, a slim girl knelt in the oriel with her face 
buried in her hands. She was clad in a gown of peacock 
blue, fitting close to her slight figure, and girded about the 
hips with a girdle of green leather. Her black hair poured 
upon her shoulders, clouding her face, yet leaving bare the 
base of her white neck where it curved from her pearly 
shoulders. She drooped her head as she knelt before the 
casement, where the light entered to her, azure and green, 
vermilion and purple, silver and rose. 

Anon she rose softly, turned towards the mirror hang- 
ing on the wall, gazed into its depths with a species of 
bewitched fear. One glance given, she turned away with 
a shudder, hid her face in her hands, walked the room in 
a mute frenzy of self-horror. Presently she knelt again 
before the window-seat, struggled in prayer, turning her face 
piteously to an open casement where the golden woods 
stood under the red wand of the west. The light waned a 
little. She rose up again from her knees, shook her hair 
forward so that it bathed her face, trod slowly towards the 
mirror, stared at herself therein. 

The crystal bowl was broken, the ivory throne dis- 
honoured ! The blush of the rose had faded, the gleam of 
the opal fallen to dust. Youth and its sapphire shield had 


290 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


passed into the gloom of dreams. The stars and the moon 
were magical no more. 

She wavered away from the window to a dark corner, 
hid her face in the arras. The same wild cry rang like a 
piteous requiem through her brain. The man lived and 
loved her, and she had come to this ! Burning Gilderoy 
had stolen her beauty, made her a mockery of her very self. 
God, that Fate should compel her to lift her scars to the 
eyes of love ! 

In the gathering dusk, she went again to the mirror, 
peered therein, with strained eyes and a tremor of the lip. 
The twilight softened somewhat the bitterness of truth. 
She shook her hair forward, saw her eyes gleam, fingered 
her white throat, and smiled a little. Presently she lit a 
taper, held it with wavering hand, peered at the steel panel 
once again. She cried out, jerked away, and crushed the 
frail light under her foot. 

Darkness increased, seeming to clothe her misery. She 
wandered through the room, twisting her black hair about 
her wrist, moaning and darting piteous glances into the 
gloom. Once she took a poniard from a table, fingered 
the point, pressed her hand over her heart, threw the knife 
away with a gesture of despair. On the morrow the man 
would come to her. What would she see in those grey 
eyes of his ? Horror and loathing, ah God, not that ! 

Anon she grew calmer and less distressed, prayed 
awhile, lit a 'lamp, delved in an ambry built in the wall. 
That night her hands worked zealously, while the moon 
shimmered on the mere, setting silver wrinkles on its agate 
face. The woods were still and solemn as death, deep 
with the voiceless sympathy of the hour. Black lace hung 
upon Yeoland^s hands; the sable thread ran through and 
through ; her white fingers quivered in the light of the 
lamp. 

Her few hours of sleep that night were wild and feverish, 
smitten through with piteous dreams. On the morrow she 
bound a black fillet about her brows, and let the dusky 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


291 


mask of lace fall over face and bosom. She prayed a long 
while before her crucifix, but she did not gaze again into 
dead Duessa’s mirror. 

That same evening Modred the seneschal blasphemed 
Aurelius in the garden of Avalon. The man of the sword 
was in no easy humour ; his convictions emerged from his 
hairy mouth with a vigour that was not considerate. 

“ Dotard, you have no more wit than a pelican.” 

‘‘ My lord, I embrace truth.” 

“ Damn truth ; what eyes have you for a goodly close ! ” 

Aurelius spread his hands with the air of a martyr. 

‘‘ The physician, my lord,” he said, “ should ever deserve 
the confidence of his patron.” 

For retort, Modred shouldered him into the thick of a 
rose bush. 

‘‘ Pedant,” quoth he, “ crab-apple, say a word on this 
matter, and I will drown you in the moat.” 

Aurelius gathered his robes and still ruffled it like an 
autocrat. 

‘‘ Barbarity, sir, is the argument of fools.” 

“ Bag of bones, rot in your wrinkled hide, keep your 
froth for sick children.” 

“ Sir!” 

‘‘ You have as much soul as a rat in a sewer. Come, 
list to me, breathe a word of this, and Fll starve you in 
our topmost turret. Leave truth alone, gaffer, with your 
rheumy, broken-kneed wisdom. You have no wit in these 
matters, no, not a crust. Blurt a word, and I pack you 
off to grovel in Gilderoy.” 

The man of physic shrugged his shoulders, seemed 
grieved and incredulous, prepared to wash his hands of the 
whole business. 

‘‘ Have your way, my lord ; you are too hot-blooded for 
me ; I will meddle no further.” 

“ Ha, Master Gallipot, you shall acknowledge anon 
that ^ have a soul,” 


XLV 


Trumpets were blowing in Avalon of the Twelve 
Towers, echoing through the valley where the sun shone 
upon the woods, the sere leaves glittering like golden byz- 
ants as they fell. The sky was a clear canopy, drawn as 
blue silk from height to height, tenting the green meadows. 
Avalon’s towers rose black and strong above the sheen of 
her quiet waters. 

From Gambrevault came the Lord Flavian to claim his 
wife once more. Through the brief days of autumn 
Aurelius of Gilderoy had decreed him an exile from the 
Isle of Orchards, pleading for the girl’s frail breath and her 
lily soul that might fade if set too soon in the noon of love. 
In Gambrevault the Lord Flavian had moped like a pris- 
oned falcon, listening to the far cry of the war, hungry for 
the touch of a woman’s hand. Modred had snatched the 
Madonna of the Pine Forest from burning Gilderoy. She 
had been throned at last above the tides of violence and 
wrong. 

That day the Lord Flavian rode in state for Avalon, 
even as an Arthurian prince coming with splendour from 
some high-souled quest. The woods had blazoned their 
banners for his march. Trumpets hailed him from the 
towers and battlements. The sun, like a great patriarch, 
smoothed his gold beard and beamed upon the world. 

Over the bridge and beneath the gate, Modred led his 
master’s horse. The garrison had gathered in the central 
court ; they tossed their swords, and cheered for Gambre- 
vault. Trumpets set the wild woods wailing. Bombards 
thundered from the towers. 

292 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


293 


In the court, amid the panoply of arms, Flavian dis- 
mounted, took Modred’s hand, leant upon the great man’s 
shoulder. 

“ Old friend, is she well ? ” 

“ Ah, sire, youth turns to youth.” 

“ Let my minstrels play below the stair some old song 
of Tristan and Iseult. And now I go to her. Lead on.” 

In dead Duessa’s bower a drooping figure knelt before a 
crucifix in prayer. Foreshadowings of misery and woe 
were stirring in the woman’s heart. She had heard the 
bray of trumpets on the towers, the thunder of cannon, the 
shouts of strong men cheering in the court. She heard lute, 
viol, and flute strike up from afar a mournful melody sweet 
with an antique woe. 

Time seemed to crawl like a wounded snake in the 
grass. The figures on the arras gestured and grimaced ; 
the jewelled glass in the oriel burnt in through the dark 
lattice of her veil. She heard footsteps on the stairs ; 
Modred’s deep voice, joyous and strangely tender. A hand 
fumbled at the latch. Starting up, she ran towards the 
shadows, and hid her face in the folds of the arras. 

The door had closed and all was silent. 

“ Yeoland.” 

The cry smote through her like joy barbed with bitter- 
ness. She shuddered and caught her breath, swayed as she 
stood with the arras hiding her face. 

“ Wife, wife.” 

With sudden strength, compelling herself, she peered 
round, and saw a figure standing in the shadow, a man with 
white face turned towards the light, his hands stretched out 
like a little child’s. She stood motionless, breathing fast 
with short, convulsive breaths, her lips quivering beneath 
her veil. 

‘‘I am here,” she said to him, husky, tremulous, and 
faint. 

“ Yeoland,” 

« Ah ! ” 


294 


LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 


“ I hear your voice ; come near to me.” 

She wavered forward three steps into the room, stood 
staring strangely at the figure by the door. 

“ Yeoland, are you near ? ” 

“ My God ! ” 

“ I give myself to you, a broken man. Ah, where are 
your hands ? ” 

Sudden comprehension seized her; she went very near 
to him, gazing; in his face. 

“ Speak.” 

“ Wife, I shall never see the sky again, nor watch the 
stars at night, nor the moon, nor the sea. I shall never 
look on Avalon, her green woods and her lilies, and her 
sleeping mere. I shall never behold your face again. I am 
blind, I am blind.” 

She gave a great cry, tore the veil from her face, and 
cast it far from her. 

“ Husband, I come to you.” 

His hands were groping in the dark, groping like souls 
that sought the light. She went near him, weeping, caught 
his fingers, kissed them with her lips. The man’s arms 
circled her ; she hung therein, and buried her head in his 
bosom. 

“ My love, my own.” 

“ I am blind j your hair bathes my face.” 

‘‘Ah, you are blind, mine eyes are yours, and I your 
wife will be your sun. No more pain shall compass you ; 
there shall be no more grieving, no more tears.” 

“ Yeoland.” 

“ Husband.” 

“ God in heaven, I give Thee thanks for this.” 


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